Tai Chi and Qigong in Medical Research: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis.

Objective: Tai Chi and Qigong are mind-body practices deriving from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) which are used clinically as therapeutic interventions. The objective of this study was to identify patterns and research trends in reviews about Tai Chi and/or Qigong through bibliometric analysis. Methods: Based on a search of Scopus, authors, collaborations and source journal impact were analyzed, along with citation counts and alternative metrics. Results: In all, 205 documents were retrieved, 72% of which concerned the practice of Tai Chi. According to the type of practices, the average citation per year was 2.2 for Qigong studies, 3.2 for Tai Chi and 5.6 for Tai Chi and Qigong reviewed together. The most productive authors were Lee, Ernst and Pittle who shared a high number of papers. The strongest institutional connection was between universities in Korea and Exeter, UK. The source journals had good ranking positions both among journals belonging to the alternative medicine category and specialized clinical journals. Conclusion: The level of collaboration among universities, the increasing number of meta-analysis studies, and the prestige of the journals in which articles were published attest that Tai Chi and Qigong practices are creating new opportunities in the traditional medicine.

Citation patterns and trends of systematic reviews about mindfulness.

OBJECTIVES: We performed a citation analysis of the literature about mindfulness aimed at describing the most significant topics and the impact of more relevant papers. METHODS: We classified 128 systematic reviews about mindfulness-based intervention retrieved in Scopus according to their object, the population included and the type of mindfulness proposed. The citation counting was reported. The cumulative citation numbers per chronological years and article life were analyzed thorough a linear regression model. RESULTS: 1) We observed a general increase in the number of reviews published from 2003 to 2016; 2) two reviews collected the 33% of the overall citations; 3) citation counting for clinical and mixed population collected the 90% of total citations; 4) clinical reviews had higher cumulative citation per publication/year growth. CONCLUSIONS: As mindfulness research advances, higher attention should be given to the mechanisms by which mindfulness interventions work so as to provide fruitful insights for future research.

MediterrAsian Diet Products That Could Raise HDL-Cholesterol: A Systematic Review.

Background. High HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) values are negatively correlated with cardiovascular diseases. This review analyses the effect of the supplementation with various Mediterranean diet products (artichoke, bergamot, and olive oil) and Asian diet products (red yeast rice) on the HDL-C value in dyslipidemic subjects. Methods. A systematic review has been done involving all the English written studies published from the 1st of January 1958 to the 31st of March 2016. Results. The results of this systematic review indicate that the dietary supplementation with red yeast rice, bergamot, artichoke, and virgin olive oil has promising effects on the increase of HDL-C serum levels. The artichoke leaf extract and virgin olive oil appear to be particularly interesting, while bergamot extract needs further research and the effect of red yeast rice seems to be limited to patients with previous myocardial infarction. Conclusions. Various MediterrAsian diet products or natural extracts may represent a potential intervention treatment to raise HDL-C in dyslipidemic subjects.

Telling the Story of Frontotemporal Dementia by Bibliometric Analysis.

In this paper, we reconstructed the medical history of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) by reviewing the literature and analyzing papers with the highest impact through citation index. Several research studies and groups involved in FTD have been reviewed. An increasing amount of knowledge has been made available in the last 20 years through a large number of publications, leading to a better definition of the genetic and clinical bases of the disease. A total of 1,436 references (articles and reviews), published in 395 journals, were retrieved through the Scopus database. The two highest publication peaks (i.e., largest number of publications) were found in 2000 and 2008. The most cited papers considering both total citation number and the number of citations within the first two years after publication refer to: (i) the genetic bases of FTD, (ii) the clinical criteria that progressively refined the different FTD phenotypes, and (iii) FTD epidemiology. Advanced neuroimaging techniques, genotype-phenotype heterogeneity, and animal models gave us a broader understanding of various aspects of the disorder. These findings confirm the great interest in FTD research. The analysis of the literature might help in guiding future goals in the field.

A bibliometric study of scientific literature on the dietary therapies for epilepsy in Scopus.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to provide a descriptive overview of the impact and production of literature on dietary therapies for epilepsy and perform a citation analysis of the related research articles. METHODS: We searched for 'ketogenic OR low-glycemic OR medium chain OR modified Atkins in TITLE AND epilep*' in Title/Abstract/Keyword in Scopus database. RESULTS: A total of 661 references were retrieved, 80% had been published after 2000s, 87% were published in English, and 39% of the publications were published in nine journals. The majority (76.3%) of research articles describe the clinical application of the dietary therapies regarding the classical ketogenic diet (80%), followed by the modified Atkins diet (11.5%), medium chain triglyceride diet (6.4%), and low glycemic index treatment (2.0%); the remaining are basic science studies on the mechanisms of action. The citation analysis revealed that the latter have the highest percentage variation in citation per publication across the years. Concerning the article cohorts, the greatest number of citations per publication was in 1998. DISCUSSION: The overview of the literature on the dietary therapy of epilepsy evidences a growing interest in the field with a striking prevalence of clinical over basic science studies. The most cited clinical studies have validated the efficacy of the dietary therapies; the few studies on the mechanisms of action received a great number of citations. Bibliometric analysis measuring the trends and the impact of the scientific literature would help researchers to a best knowledge of this specific topic.