The aim of this study was to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the scientific articles on advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and obesity. English-language journal articles about AGEs and obesity were retrieved from the Scopus database. The OpenRefine application was used for data cleaning, the VOSviewer software program for analysis of the trends of year of publication, country, institution, journal, authors, references, and keywords. Microsoft Excel and Tableau Public were applied for the visualizing of the publication trends. Data collection was performed on 3 February 2022, from a total of 1170 documents. The Mann–Whitney test and Spearman test with software SPSS ver.28.0.1.1. were used to assess the relation between open access journal statuses, years of publications, and CiteScore. The results of the study showed that there was an increase in studies on processed foods, including AGEs and obesity. The United States was the country with the largest contribution in this field, with the highest number of citations. The Nutrients journal published the largest number of articles on this topic, particularly in the last two years. The present focus of the studies is on ultra-processed foods. The open access journals have younger medians of the year of publication and higher medians for number of citations than do closed access journals (p < 0.001 and p < 0.05, respectively). A strong negative association was seen between CiteScore and the year of publication (r = −0.64 [95%CI: −0.67, −0.60]), p < 0.001. We present this bibliometric analysis to furnish the most recent data on the description, visualization, and analysis of AGEs and obesity.

Dietary and plasma carboxymethyl lysine (dCML, pCML) and plasma tumor necrosis factor-α (pTNF-α) may be associated with obesity in affluent society. However, evidence in women from low-middle income countries with predominantly traditional diets is lacking. We investigated the mediator effects of dCML, pCML and pTNF-α on body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) among Indonesian women. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 235 non-diabetic, non-anemic and non-smoking women aged 19–50 years from selected mountainous and coastal areas of West Sumatra and West Java. Dietary CML, pCML, pTNF-α were obtained from 2 × 24-h recalls, ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively. Between-group differences were analyzed by the Chi-square or Mann-Whitney test and mediator effects by Structural Equation Modeling. The medians and interquartile-ranges of dCML, pCML and pTNF-α were 2.2 (1.7–3.0) mg/day, 22.2 (17.2–28.2) ng/mL and 0.68 (0.52–1.00) IU/mL, respectively, and significantly higher in the WC ≥ 80 cm than in the WC < 80 cm group, but not in BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2 compared to BMI < 25 kg/m2 group. Plasma CML and pTNF-α were positively and directly related to WC (β = 0.21 [95% CI: 0.09, 0.33] and β = 0.23 [95% CI: 0.11, 0.35], respectively). Dietary CML that correlated with dry-heat processing and cereals as the highest contributions was positively related to WC (β = 0.33 [95% CI: 0.12, 0.83]). Ethnicity, level of education, intake of fat, and intake of energy contributed to dCML, pCML and pTNF-α, and subsequently affected WC, while only ethnicity contributed to BMI through dCML, pCML and pTNF-α (β = 0.07 [95% CI: 0.01, 0.14]). A positive direct effect of dCML on pCML and of pCML and pTNF-α on WC was seen among Indonesian women. Dietary CML seems to have several paths that indirectly influence the increases in WC if compared to BMI. Thus, intake of CML-rich foods should be reduced, or the foods consumed in moderate amounts to avoid the risk of central obesity in this population.