Author(s)

Rong Gao ¹, Yake Jin ¹, Xin Ke ¹, Xiao Song ^1,2

Affiliation(s)

¹ College of Pharmacy, Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Xianyang, China
² Engineering Research Center for Pharmaceutics of Chinese Materia Medica and New Drug Development, Ministry of Education, Beijing, China

Corresponding Author

Xiao Song

ABSTRACT

This paper systematically reviews the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) medication rules and therapeutic methods for diabetes to provide a reference for further research. With consumptive thirst and diabetes as keywords, the databases, as well as the 2025 edition of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and the classics of traditional Chinese medicine were searched. A total of 361 TCM prescriptions involving 321 herbs were collected. The most frequently used herbs were Astragali Radix, Glycyrrhizae Radix Et Rhizoma, Rehmanniae Radix, Coptidis Rhizoma, Poria, and Dioscoreae Rhizoma. These herbs were mostly cold, warm, or flat in nature, sweet, bitter, or pungent in taste, and mainly acted on the liver, lung, stomach, spleen, and kidney meridians. Common herb pairs included Astragali Radix–Rehmanniae Radix, Astragali Radix–Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix Et Rhizoma, and Astragali Radix–Dioscoreae Rhizoma. TCM therapy for diabetes combines medicinal and non-medicinal approaches, with core principles of reinforcing qi and nourishing yin, tonifying the kidney and invigorating the spleen, supplemented by acupuncture, Tuina, and dietary therapy. TCM also emphasizes preventive treatment of disease, advocating healthy lifestyles, reasonable diets, moderate exercise, and regular physical examinations, which are important for diabetes prevention and management.

KEYWORDS

Diabetes mellitus, Data mining, Medication rules, Treatment methods

CITE THIS PAPER

Rong Gao, Yake Jin, Xin Ke, Xiao Song. Exploring the Potential of Traditional Chinese Medicine to Prevent Diabetes Mellitus Based on System Generalisation and Data Mining. MEDS Chinese Medicine (2026). Vol. 8, No. 1, 112-119. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/medcm.2026.080113.

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