Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide and its prevalence continues to rise. Chronic hyperglycemia exposes patients to severe complications. Among these, diabetic vascular lesions are the most destructive. Their primary driver is the synergistic interaction between hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. This review systematically elucidates how multiple pathological pathways—namely, metabolic dysregulation, mitochondrial dysfunction, endoplasmic reticulum stress, and epigenetic reprogramming—cooperate to drive oxidative stress and inflammatory cascades. Confronting this complex pathological network, natural products, unlike conventional single-target synthetic drugs, exert multi-target synergistic effects, simultaneously modulating several key pathogenic networks. This enables the restoration of redox homeostasis and the suppression of inflammatory responses, thereby improving vascular function and delaying both microvascular and macrovascular disease progression. However, the clinical translation of natural products still faces multiple challenges and requires comprehensive mechanistic studies and rigorous validation to fully realize their therapeutic potential.
Liu et al. (2025) studied this question.