The gut microbiome in human health and disease—Where are we and where are we going? A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

BackgroundThere are trillions of microbiota in our intestinal tract, and they play a significant role in health and disease via interacting with the host in metabolic, immune, neural, and endocrine pathways. Over the past decades, numerous studies have been published in the field of gut microbiome and disease. Although there are narrative reviews of gut microbiome and certain diseases, the whole field is lack of systematic and quantitative analysis. Therefore, we outline research status of the gut microbiome and disease, and present insights into developments and characteristics of this field to provide a holistic grasp and future research directions.MethodsAn advanced search was carried out in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), basing on the term “gut microbiome” and its synonyms. The current status and developing trends of this scientific domain were evaluated by bibliometric methodology. CiteSpace was used to perform collaboration network analysis, co-citation analysis and citation burst detection.ResultsA total of 29,870 articles and 13,311 reviews were retrieved from the database, which involve 42,900 keywords, 176 countries/regions, 19,065 institutions, 147,225 authors and 4,251 journals. The gut microbiome and disease research is active and has received increasing attention. Co-cited reference analysis revealed the landmark articles in the field. The United States had the largest number of publications and close cooperation with other countries. The current research mainly focuses on gastrointestinal diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD), while extra-intestinal diseases are also rising, such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease. Omics technologies, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and metabolites linked to mechanism would be more concerned in the future.ConclusionThe gut microbiome and disease has been a booming field of research, and the trend is expected to continue. Overall, this research field shows a multitude of challenges and great opportunities.