Role of Blood Stasis Syndrome of Kampo Medicine in the Early Pathogenic Stage of Atherosclerosis: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study

Akira Morita; Takao Namiki; Toshiya Nakaguchi; Kazunari Murai; Yuki Watanabe; Michimi Nakamura; Yohei Kawasaki; Yuki Shiko; Yutaka Tamura; Akiko Suganami; Aya Murakami; Akio Yagi; Hideki Okamoto; Yoshiro Hirasaki

doi:10.1155/2021/5557392

Role of Blood Stasis Syndrome of Kampo Medicine in the Early Pathogenic Stage of Atherosclerosis: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021 May 26:2021:5557392. doi: 10.1155/2021/5557392. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Japanese-Oriental (Kampo) Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8670, Japan.
² Center for Frontier Medical Engineering, Chiba University, 1-33, Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
³ Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University, 1-33, Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
⁴ Biostatistics Section, Clinical Research Center, Chiba University Hospital, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8677, Japan.
⁵ Department of Bioinformatics, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8670, Japan.
⁶ Center for Pharmaceutical Education, Faculty of Pharmacy, Yokohama University of Pharmacy, 601 Matano-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama 245-0066, Japan.

Abstract

In Kampo medicine, blood stasis (BS) syndrome is strongly associated with microangiopathy and can lead to atherosclerosis. Vascular endothelial dysfunction (VED), evaluated through flow-mediated dilation (FMD), plays an important role in the early stages of atherosclerosis. However, the association of BS syndrome with VED, as determined using FMD, has not been reported. This study investigated the association between BS syndrome and VED using FMD. Forty-one patients with normal glucose tolerance or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and without macrovascular complications were evaluated using FMD from May 2017 to August 2017. Based on the BS score, the patients were divided into the non-BS (n = 19) and BS syndrome (n = 22) groups. Physical and background characteristics, physiological function test results, and laboratory data were compared. Univariate analysis revealed that FMD and a history of dyslipidemia/IGT were significantly different between the two groups (p < 0.05). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that BS syndrome was significantly associated with FMD (odds ratio: 6.26; p=0.03) after adjusting for the history of dyslipidemia/IGT. The receiver operating characteristic curve showed that the area under the curve for BS syndrome (0.74; p < 0.001) and history of IGT (p < 0.007) provided good diagnostic accuracy for FMD. The area under the curve for "BS syndrome + IGT" showed very good accuracy (0.80; p < 0.0001) and was higher than that for BS syndrome or IGT alone. In conclusion, the results of this study suggest that the BS score in Kampo medicine could be a useful tool for detecting the early pathogenic stages of atherosclerosis.