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Tendencies and Challenges in Worldwide Scientific Research on Probiotics

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Abstract

The central goal of this study was to analyze scientific trends in the research on probiotics, including the number of papers, funding, country collaborations, and most cited publications. The study makes use of bibliometric and social network analysis of papers included in the Science Citation Index Expanded from the Web of Science database. A total of 7221 papers were retrieved, from which 64% were funded papers. Papers were published in journals covering several areas, such as Food Science & Technology, Microbiology, Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology, Nutrition & Dietetics and Agriculture, and Dairy & Animal Science. Coword analysis shows the relationships between microorganisms, diseases, physiological phenomena, and other key words related to food, population, or type of study. The USA appeared as the world leader in the number of articles produced (n = 919), followed by China (n = 689), India (n = 633), and Brazil (n = 506). The most cited papers related to the consensus on the scope and appropriate use of the term probiotic, its effects on the prevention and treatment of some intestinal diseases, its effects on the suppression of immune disorders, the role of probiotics and prebiotics in obesity, the assessment of psychotropic-like properties, and the application for type 2 diabetes.

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Data Availability

All data are from the Web of Science, an online subscription-based scientific citation indexing service originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), now maintained by Clarivate Analytics. The data generated and used during this research are openly available from Zenodo.org public repository at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2553182.

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Funding

LCC and RAB are funded by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CSO2015-65594-C2-2-R0).

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Author notes

  1. José Luis Aleixandre-Tudó and Lourdes Castelló-Cogollos contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Viticulture and Oenology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    José Luis Aleixandre-Tudó

  2. Departamento de Sociologia y Antropología Social, Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Lourdes Castelló-Cogollos

  3. UISYS, Unidad Mixta de Investigación, CSIC-Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Lourdes Castelló-Cogollos & Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent

  4. Instituto de Ingeniería de Alimentos para el Desarrollo (IIAD), Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    José Luis Aleixandre

  5. Ingenio (CSIC-UPV), UISYS (CSIC-Universidad de Valencia), Valencia, Spain

    Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent

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  1. José Luis Aleixandre-Tudó
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Correspondence to José Luis Aleixandre.

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Aleixandre-Tudó, J.L., Castelló-Cogollos, L., Aleixandre, J.L. et al. Tendencies and Challenges in Worldwide Scientific Research on Probiotics. Probiotics & Antimicro. Prot. 12, 785–797 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12602-019-09591-0

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