Background In recent years,astragalus made great progress in the treatment of heart failure,and become an important supplementary conventional treatment of heart failure drugs.The article will investigate the effect of astragalus injection on plasma adiponectin concentration and its possible mechanisms in patients with chronic heart failure.Methods sixty-two chronic heart failure(CHF)patients with NYHA functional class Ⅱ-Ⅳ grade were randomly divided into treatment group(treatment group of 31 cases)and conventional treatment group(control group of 31 cases),blood samples were collected at 2 weeks before and after treatment in 62 CHF patients and in 30 healthy subjects.Plasma adiponectin and brain natriuretic peptide were measured in two groups before and after treatment.NYHA functional class and left ventricular function indexes were also assessed by echocardiography.Results The NYHA functional class were improved after treatment(P < 0.05),and significantly in treatment group than in control group(P < 0.05);There were significantly decreased in left ventricular end-systolic volume(LVESV)and left ventricular end-diastolic volume(LVEDV)and improved in left ventricular ejection fraction(LVEF)after treatment in treatment group(P < 0.05).At the same time,plasma adiponectin and brain natriuretic peptide levels were significantly decreased after astragalus injection in treatment group(P <0.05).Conclusion These findings indicate that astragalus injection can improve cardiac remodeling,decrease the secretion of brain natriuretic peptide,which may exercise through the lipid effect to decrease plasma adiponectin concentration.[S Chin J Cardiol 2011;12(3):172-177] Background In recent years, astragalus made great progress in the treatment of heart failure, and become an important conventional treatment of heart failure drugs. The article will investigate the effect of astragalus injection on plasma adiponectin concentration and its possible mechanisms in patients with chronic heart failure.Methods Sixty-two chronic heart failure (CHF) patients with NYHA functional class Ⅱ-Ⅳ grade were randomly divided into treatment group (treatment group of 31 cases) and conventional treatment group (control group of 31 cases) at 2 weeks before and after treatment in 62 CHF patients and in 30 healthy subjects. Plasma adiponectin and brain natriuretic peptide were measured in two groups before and after treatment. NYHA functional class and left ventricular function indexes were also assessed by echocardiography. Results The NYHA functional class were improved after treatment (P <0.05), and significantly in treatment group than there was significantly decreased in left ventricular end-systolic volume (LVESV) and left ventricular end-diastolic volume (LVEDV) and improved in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) after treatment in treatment group (P <0.05) .At the same time, plasma adiponectin and brain natriuretic peptide levels were significantly decreased after astragalus injection in treatment group (P <0.05) .Conclusion These findings that astragalus injection can improve cardiac remodeling, decrease the secretion of brain natriuretic peptide , which may exercise through the lipid effect to decrease plasma adiponectin concentration. [S Chin J Cardiol 2011; 12 (3): 172-177]