. BNC, as a TCM for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, are approved by the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) and recorded in the Chinese Phar- macopoeia (Chinese Pharmacopoeia Commission, 2015). BNC are well received by TCM patients, with sales of more than a billion Chinese yuan in 2010. BNC are composed of powder from 16 tra- ditional Chinese medicinal herb or animal powders, including Astragalus membranaceus var