A bibliometric analysis of the global trends and hotspots for the ketogenic diet based on CiteSpace

The ketogenic diet (KD) is a potential nutritional therapy that is frequently utilized in various conditions. More and more studies are being done on KD in recent years. However, as far as we know, few studies have made an effort to offer a thorough synthesis and assessment of this topic. This paper aims to do a rigorous and thorough evaluation of the knowledge structure, development trend, and research hotspot of scientific outputs connected to KD. The bibliographic records connected to KD from January 1, 2001 to April 22, 2022 were collected using the core collection database of Web of Science. The complex data input, that consisted of the amount of publications, journals, authors, institutions, countries, keywords and cited references, was generated and analyzed visually using CiteSpace. A total of 2676 literatures on the KD were published between 2001 and 2022. The most KD-related publications were found in Epilepsia and Epilepsia Research. The authors with the most KD-related papers are Kossoff EH and Rho J. The United States is the country with the most publications, and Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins University Hospital, and Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions are the institutions with the most articles. The high frequency keywords are “KD,” “ketone body,” “children,” “efficacy,” “weight loss,” “low carbohydrate diet,” “metabolism,” “epilepsy,” “beta hydroxybutyrate,” and “modified atkins diet.” The 2018 study by Kossoff EH on epilepsia and the 2017 study by Puchalska P on ketone body metabolism earned 127 and 114 citations, respectively. The results of this bibliometric analysis provide information on the state and trends in KD and may be used by researchers to pinpoint hot issues and discover new areas of study.