Recent studies on DKD suggest certain Chinese herbal agents exert autophagy-inducing functions [18], implying autophagy activation may act as a potential target for its renoprotective action in DKD therapy; meanwhile, the mechanisms of how herbal medicine exerts renal benefits on DKD are addressed through different pathways related to autophagy mainly involving mTOR, AMPK, and Sirt1 (Table 1). The gene discussed is SIRT1; the disease is diabetic kidney disease.