Scientometrics
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 28, 2024; 30(24): 3106-3119
Published online Jun 28, 2024. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v30.i24.3106
Mapping global research trends: Nutrition associations with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease - a Scopus bibliometric analysis
Muna Shakhshir, Sa'ed H Zyoud
Muna Shakhshir, Department of Nutrition, An-Najah National University Hospital, Nablus 44839, Palestine
Muna Shakhshir, Department of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus 44839, Palestine
Sa'ed H Zyoud, Department of Clinical and Community Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus 44839, Palestine
Sa'ed H Zyoud, Poison Control and Drug Information Center, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus 44839, Palestine
Sa'ed H Zyoud, Clinical Research Center, An-Najah National University Hospital, Nablus 44839, Palestine
Author contributions: Zyoud SH designed the study, collected the data, analyzed the data, made major contributions to the literature search and interpretation, and drafted the manuscript; Shakhshir M contributed to the conceptualization and methodology of the study, was involved in the interpretation of the data, authored the manuscript and made revisions to the final draft; All authors provided a critical review and approved the final manuscript before submission.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report having no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sa'ed H Zyoud, PhD, Director, Full Professor, Department of Clinical and Community Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Academic Street, Nablus 44839, Palestine. saedzyoud@yahoo.com
Received: March 4, 2024
Revised: May 10, 2024
Accepted: June 5, 2024
Published online: June 28, 2024
Processing time: 112 Days and 23.4 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Several bibliometric analyses have been carried out to identify research hotspots and trends in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) research. Nonetheless, there are still significant knowledge gaps that must be filled to advance our understanding of and ability to treat NAFLD.

AIM

To evaluate, through bibliometric and visual analysis, the current status of related research, related research frontiers, and the developmental trends in the field of diet and NAFLD.

METHODS

We retrieved publications about diet and NAFLD published between 1987 and 2022 from Scopus. Next, we used VOSviewer 1.6.20 to perform bibliometric analysis and visualization.

RESULTS

We found a total of 1905 studies, including 1637 (85.93%) original articles and 195 (10.24%) reviews, focused on the examination of NAFLD and its correlation with diet that were published between 1987 and 2022. Among the remaining five types of documents, 38 were letters, notes, editorials, meeting minutes, or brief surveys, representing 1.99% of the total documents. The countries with the most publications on this topic were China (n = 539; 28.29%), followed by the United States (n = 379; 19.90%), Japan (n = 133; 6.98%), and South Korea (n = 127; 6.6%). According to the citation analysis, the retrieved papers were cited an average of 32.3 times and had an h-index of 106, with 61014 total citations. The two main clusters on the map included those related to: (1) Inflammation and oxidative stress; and (2) Dietary interventions for NAFLD.

CONCLUSION

This was the first study to use data taken from Scopus to visualize network mapping in a novel bibliometric analysis of studies focused on diet and NAFLD. After 2017, the two domains that received the most attention were “dietary interventions for NAFL”’ and “‘inflammation and oxidative stress implicated in NAFLD and its correlation with diet.” We believe that this study provides important information for academics, dietitians, and doctors, and that additional research on dietary interventions and NAFLD is warranted.

Keywords: Dietary; Nutrition; Bibliometric; Nonalcoholic fatty liver; Scopus; VOSviewer

Core Tip: The objective of this study was to assess the current landscape of research in the field of diet and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) by employing bibliometric and visual analyses. This study is the first to utilize Scopus data for visualizing network mapping in a novel bibliometric examination of diet and NAFLD studies. Post-2017, the primary areas of focus were “dietary interventions for NAFLD” and “inflammation and oxidative stress associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and its relationship with diet”. These findings indicate a significant level of attention toward research in this domain, reflecting its alignment with the latest scientific advancements. We argue that our study offers valuable insights to scholars, dietitians, and medical practitioners, emphasizing the importance of further investigation into dietary interventions and NAFLD.