Scientometrics as a Powerful Tool in Integrating Isolated Medical Specialties: A Case Study of the Rediscovery of the Luigi Cornaro Diet

Abstract

Modern medicine is divided into different specialties. While well-trained experts can serve the patients better, each medical specialty is isolated to itself. For example, it is a norm for gastroenterology that fasting can lead to gastrointestinal tract (GIT) mucosa atrophy, and make the patient prone to bacterial translocation and sepsis. Yet, physiologists still think that fasting might be a feasible solution for obesity and related illnesses, as it can trigger autophagy which has multiple physiological functions benefiting the body. In this chapter, using the rediscovery of the Luigi Cornaro diet as an example, we demonstrate that scientometrics methods can be a powerful tool to integrate the isolated medical specialties. The Luigi Cornaro diet is able to maintain the homeostasis of GIT mucosa while keeping a serum starvation to fit for a rare physiological condition of fully developed sustained upregulated autophagy (SUA) in the body. Although fully developed SUA is relatively rare, lowgrade upregulated autophagy (UA) is quite common, reflected by the prevalence of obesity in population. UA is the main component of our self-healing capacity, and the connector between infection and obesity. Such discovery of scientometrics could be the next generation medical practice.

Nutrition acquisition by human immunity, transient overnutrition and the cytokine storm in severe cases of COVID-19

“…Clinically, early parenteral nutrition (PN) alone or PN in combination with enteral feedings are strongly discouraged in critically ill patients, and only initiative early enteral nutrition (EEN) is recommended for patients who can be fed enterally [9] . EEN can be beneficial due to its trophic effect on gut mucosa [10] to avoid gut mucosa atrophy and bacteria translocation [11] , while aggressive nutritional support may be detrimental [10] due to the transient over-nutrition discussed above. In the future, high-quality clinical trials on restrictive eating [5] in which only very small amount of enteral nutrition will be provided to support the gut mucosa, and maintain serum fasting to dissipate the transient over-nutrition during SARS-CoV-2 viral infection should be designed to investigate the possible benefits of restrictive eating to COVID-19 recovery.…”