COVID-19 and Curcumin: Using VOSviewer software to explore scientific landscapes – A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Background: Curcumin is derived from Turmeric which is a spice with an old history in the oriental world. For this reason, it was a subject for continuous research over years and some studies reported preliminary positive results in arthritis and metabolic syndrome. When COVID-19 declared as a global pandemic, debates exploded again regarding its effects in mitigating deleterious effects of the viral infection. However, being a traditional remedy flooded readers with thousands of publications, some of these was scientifically rigid and others were fraudulent. We aim to use VOSviewer software to visualize scientific landscape in this topic, to highlight the trends and identify main supporting bodies. Methods: We searched Web of Science (WOS) core collection database for publications between December 2019 and April 2022. Data collected include: year of publication, keywords, type of the document, author names, affiliations, abstracts and number of citations. VOSviewer 1.6.18 was used to analyze co-citation, co-occurrence, and publication trends. Analysis considered one weight attribute which is total link strength attributes. Results: A total of 205 publications (N=205) were included in the analysis. Most studies were original research articles (50.7%). Mean citation count of the top 10 cited articles was 37.9 (range 22 and 111). Country of corresponding author of these 10 studies was India in 5 (50%), Iran in 3 (30%). Organizational analysis revealed 5 Iranian universities as being the main research bodies with total link strengths (TLS) of 100. Co-occurrence of keywords identified viral inhibition, oxidative stress, molecular docking, NF-kB pathway as the most frequent mentioned keywords. Trend analysis showed negative trend with less publications covering this topic, chronologically. Conclusion: Curcumin resided within the oriental tradition for years, it is no surprise that main supporting bodies were oriental. VOSviewer provides an easy, user-friendly options to handle bibliographic data.