Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a group of diseases with a very high rate of morbidity
and mortality. The clinical presentation of CVDs can vary from asymptomatic to classic symptoms
such as chest pain in patients with myocardial infarction. Current therapeutics for CVDs mainly
target disease symptoms. The most common CVDs are coronary artery disease, acute myocardial
infarction, atrial fibrillation, chronic heart failure, arterial hypertension, and valvular heart disease.
In their treatment, conventional therapies and pharmacological therapies are used. However, the use
of herbal medicines in the therapy of these diseases has also been reported in the literature, resulting
in a need for critical evaluation of advances related to their use. Therefore, we carried out a narrative
review of pharmacological and herbal therapeutic effects reported for these diseases. Data for this
comprehensive review were obtained from electronic databases such as MedLine, PubMed, Web
of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Conventional therapy requires an individual approach to
the patients, as when patients do not respond well, this often causes allergic effects or various other
unwanted effects. Nowadays, medicinal plants as therapeutics are frequently used in different parts of
the world. Preclinical/clinical pharmacology studies have confirmed that some bioactive compounds
may have beneficial therapeutic effects in some common CVDs. The natural products analyzed in
this review are promising phytochemicals for adjuvant and complementary drug candidates in CVDs
pharmacotherapy, and some of them have already been approved by the FDA. There are insufficient
clinical studies to compare the effectiveness of natural products compared to approved therapeutics
for the treatment of CVDs. Further long-term studies are needed to accelerate the potential of using
natural products for these diseases. Despite this undoubted beneficence on CVDs, there are no strong
breakthroughs supporting the implementation of natural products in clinical practice. Nevertheless,
they are promising agents in the supplementation and co-therapy of CVDs.