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Abstract
Background The link between gut microbiota and chronic painful conditions has recently gained attention. Nutrition, as a common intervention in daily life and medical practice, is closely related to microbiota and pain. However, no published bibliometric reports have analyzed this link.
Methods We used bibliometrics to identify the characteristics of the global trends over the past 20 years. We also aimed to capture how nutrition can modulate the abovementioned link. Relevant papers were searched in the Web of Science database. All necessary data were acquired and exported to Bibliometrix for further analyses. The keywords mentioned were illustrated using visualization maps.
Results The role of nutrition has been overlooked in clinical applications of microbiota therapy (IDDF2024-ABS-0243 Figure 1). From 2003 to 2022, a total of 1,551 papers revealed the relationship between gut microbiota and pain (IDDF2024-ABS-0243 Figure 2). There has been a growing trend each year since the earliest publication in 2003, reaching 100 publications in 2017. Among them, there were 1,020 original articles (65.76%) and 531 reviews (34.24%). The first paper discussing how nutrition modulates pain-gut microbiota was published in 2008, comprising 68 original articles (55.74%) and 54 reviews (44.26%) (IDDF2024-ABS-0243 Figure 3, IDDF2024-ABS-0243 Figure 4). Most of the top 10 prolific institutions were from the United States, with Nanjing Medical University being the only Chinese academic institution among the top 10. However, only 122 papers discussed the association between nutrition and regulation. Citations and focus were concentrated on gut microbiota, pain, and probiotics. Nutritional status garnered significant attention in thematic keywords (IDDF2024-ABS-0243 Figure 5, IDDF2024-ABS-0243 Figure 6).
Conclusions This bibliometric analysis is applied to identify research related to gut microbiota, chronic pain, and nutrition. Analysis based on bibliometric tools provides a new perspective on evolving research trends globally, which is relatively more comprehensive and objective compared to traditional reviews. We aimed to explore whether dysbiosis of microbiota and subsequent malnutrition were indeed the causes of various human pains or merely results. Research in this area faces some limitations, making it difficult to draw definitive conclusions. In the clinic, more high-quality mechanistic studies are needed to explore more among gut microbiota, nutrition, and pain to draw more accurate conclusions.