Medicinal and edible plants in the treatment of dyslipidemia: advances and prospects

Dyslipidemia is an independent risk factor of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), which lead to the high mortality, disability, and medical expenses in the worldwide. Based on the previous researches, the improvement of dyslipidemia could efficiently prevent the occurrence and progress of cardiovascular diseases. Medicinal and edible plants (MEPs) are the characteristics of Chinese medicine, and could be employed for the disease treatment and health care mostly due to their homology of medicine and food. Compared to the lipid-lowering drugs with many adverse effects, such as rhabdomyolysis and impaired liver function, MEPs exhibit the great potential in the treatment of dyslipidemia with high efficiency, good tolerance and commercial value. In this review, we would like to introduce 20 kinds of MEPs with lipid-lowering effect in the following aspects, including the source, function, active component, target and underlying mechanism, which may provide inspiration for the development of new prescription, functional food and complementary therapy for dyslipidemia.