| Objective To observe the effect of conventional Western medicine with Shenlian combination on glucose and lipid metabolism and intestinal flora-immune response in patients with metabolic syndrome (MS). Methods Fifty-four MS patients with syndrome of damp-heat blocking middle jiao and qi deficiency collected from Tongren Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine from January 2019 to August 2020 were included in this study, and they were randomly divided into control group (conventional Western medicine) and treatment group (Shenlian combination + conventional Western medicine), with 27 cases in each group. The levels of blood glucose, blood lipid, CRP, IL-6, IL-10 in 2 groups were observed before and after treatment. The intestinal bacterial DNA and the structural changes of main intestinal flora were quantitatively analyzed by fluorescence quantitative PCR. Results Compared with before treatment, content of colibacillus, the levels of fasting blood glucose, TC, TG, LDL-C, CRP and IL-6 decreased, but Lactobacilli, Bifidobacterial, the levels of HDL-C and IL-10 increased after treatment in 2 groups. Among them, the decrease of TG, IL-6 and the increase of IL-10 in 2 groups were statistically significant. The increase of Lactobacilli in the treatment group was statistically significant (P＜0.05). Compared with the control group, the IL-10 increase and IL-6 decrease in the treatment group were greater (P＜0.05). Conclusions The combined treatment of conventional Western medicine and Shenlian combination can increase the level of immune inflammatory factor IL-10 in peripheral blood, reduce the levels of IL-6, and obviously elevate the content of Lactobacillus in intestinal tract in MS patients. Our finding is of great significance on the investigations regarding Shenlian combination with conventional Western medicine on intestinal flora-immune response in MS patients. |