A bibliometric analysis of research on herbal medicine for obesity over the past 20 years.

Background: The aim of this study was to analyze published papers on the use of herbal medicine in obesity research over the past 20 years using bibliometric methods and present an overview of global research trends.

Methods: English articles on herbal medicine for obesity published from 2001 to 2020 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database using the search terms "herbal" AND "obesity". Microsoft Office Excel was used to sort and analyze the statistical data. Bibliographic analysis and data visualization were performed using visualization of similarities viewer based on publication year, country of publication, journal, research area, author, affiliated institution, and keywords.

Results: A total of 463 English articles were retrieved, and we observed a trend in which the number of publications on herbal medicine for obesity has gradually increased over the past 20 years. The most productive countries and research organizations in this field were Korea and Kyunghee University, respectively. Many papers have been published in research areas, such as pharmacology pharmacy and integrative complementary medicine, and the journals with the most published articles in this field were Journal of Ethnopharmacology and Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The main research keywords formed 3 clusters, and keywords with the most occurrences were "obesity," "adipose-tissue," and "insulin resistance."

Conclusion: This study presents an overview of the global research trend of herbal medicine for obesity from the bibliographic analysis. An increased understanding of the recently changing research topics provides a new perspective on future research directions. This study may help guide the research in the field of obesity in the future.