Scientometrics
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Jan 15, 2025; 16(1): 96032
Published online Jan 15, 2025. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v16.i1.96032
Global trends and hotspots of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents: A bibliometric study and visualization analysis
Fang-Shuo Zhang, Hai-Jing Li, Xue Yu, Yi-Ping Song, Yan-Feng Ren, Xuan-Zhu Qian, Jia-Li Liu, Wen-Xun Li, Yi-Ran Huang, Kuo Gao
Fang-Shuo Zhang, Yi-Ping Song, Yan-Feng Ren, Xuan-Zhu Qian, Jia-Li Liu, Wen-Xun Li, Yi-Ran Huang, School of Acupuncture-Moxibustion and Tuina, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, China
Hai-Jing Li, Xue Yu, Kuo Gao, School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, China
Co-first authors: Fang-Shuo Zhang and Hai-Jing Li.
Co-corresponding authors: Yi-Ran Huang and Kuo Gao.
Author contributions: Yu X and Song YP contributed to the literature search and screening, data analysis and visualization, and manuscript drafting; Ren YF contributed to study conception and draft review; Qian XZ contributed to literature searching and screening; Liu JL contributed to study conception and methodology, and data verification; Li WX contributed to data curation; All authors revised and approved the final version of this manuscript. Zhang FS and Li HJ are co-first authors of this manuscript due to their equal contributions to conception and design of the study, acquiring and analyzing data from the experiments, writing of the manuscript, and making critical revisions for important intellectual content; Huang YR and Gao K are co-corresponding authors of this manuscript according to their equal contributions in design of the study, guidance in software, critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content, and providing approval of the final version.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82105018 and No. 81903950.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report 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: Kuo Gao, MD, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, No. 11 North Third Ring East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100029, China. 515123134@qq.com
Received: April 25, 2024
Revised: September 30, 2024
Accepted: November 19, 2024
Published online: January 15, 2025
Processing time: 218 Days and 14.3 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Epidemiological surveys indicate an increasing incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among children and adolescents worldwide. Due to rapid disease progression, severe long-term cardiorenal complications, a lack of effective treatment strategies, and substantial socioeconomic burdens, it has become an urgent public health issue that requires management and resolution. Adolescent T2DM differs from adult T2DM. Despite a significant increase in our understanding of youth-onset T2DM over the past two decades, the related review and evidence-based content remain limited.

AIM

To visualize the hotspots and trends in pediatric and adolescent T2DM research and to forecast their future research themes.

METHODS

This study utilized the terms “children”, “adolescents”, and “type 2 diabetes”, retrieving relevant articles published between 1983 and 2023 from three citation databases within the Web of Science Core Collection (SCI, SSCI, ESCI). Utilizing CiteSpace and VoSviewer software, we analyze and visually represent the annual output of literature, countries involved, and participating institutions. This allows us to predict trends in this research field. Our analysis encompasses co-cited authors, journal overlays, citation overlays, time-zone views, keyword analysis, and reference analysis, etc.

RESULTS

A total of 9210 articles were included, and the annual publication volume in this field showed a steady growth trend. The United States had the highest number of publications and the highest H-index. The United States also had the most research institutions and the strongest research capacity. The global hot journals were primarily diabetes professional journals but also included journals related to nutrition, endocrinology, and metabolism. Keyword analysis showed that research related to endothelial dysfunction, exposure risk, cardiac metabolic risk, changes in gut microbiota, the impact on comorbidities and outcomes, etc., were emerging keywords. They have maintained their popularity in this field, suggesting that these areas have garnered significant research interest in recent years.

CONCLUSION

Pediatric and adolescent T2DM is increasingly drawing global attention, with genes, behaviors, environmental factors, and multisystemic interventions potentially emerging as future research hot spots.

Keywords: Child; Adolescent; Type 2 diabetes mellitus; Bibliometrics; Knowledge mapping; Visualization; CiteSpace; VOSviewer

Core Tip: A total of 9210 articles were enrolled to explore the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in children and adolescents from 1983-2023. Based on analysis of the relevant indices, this study determined the development and changes of T2DM in children and adolescents as well as the characteristics of the published papers and the author’s origin. Furthermore, we conducted a visualization analysis of keywords and co-cited references. The results showed that genes, behavior, psychology, environment, and integrated diagnosis and treatment of multiple systems may constitute significant areas of future research.