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. 2020 May 12;17(10):3376.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17103376.

Worldwide Research Trends on Medicinal Plants

Esther Salmerón-Manzano  1 , Jose Antonio Garrido-Cardenas  2 , Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro  3
Affiliations

Worldwide Research Trends on Medicinal Plants

Esther Salmerón-Manzano et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

The use of medicinal plants has been done since ancient times and may even be considered the origin of modern medicine. Compounds of plant origin have been and still are an important source of compounds for drugs. In this study a bibliometric study of all the works indexed in the Scopus database until 2019 has been carried out, analyzing more than 100,000 publications. On the one hand, the main countries, institutions and authors researching this topic have been identified, as well as their evolution over time. On the other hand, the links between the authors, the countries and the topics under research have been analyzed through the detection of communities. The last two periods, from 2009 to 2014 and from 2015 to 2019, have been examined in terms of research topics. It has been observed that the areas of study or clusters have been reduced, those of the last period being those engaged in unclassified drug, traditional medicine, cancer, in vivo study-antidiabetic activity, and animals-anti-inflammatory activity. In summary, it has been observed that the trend in global research is focused more on the search for new medicines or active compounds rather than on the cultivation or domestication of plant species with this demonstrated potential.

Keywords: bibliometrics; drugs; medicinal plants; traditional medicine; worldwide research.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Methodology.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Worldwide temporal evolution of medical plants publications.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Medicinal plants publications by scientific categories indexed in Scopus.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Worldwide research on medical plants.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Temporal evolution on medical plants publications for Top 12 countries.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Distribution by scientific categories according to countries.
Figure 7
Figure 7
A collaborative network of authors with more than 40 publications on medicinal plants.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Cloudword of keywords in medical plants publications.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Network of keywords in medical plants publications: Clusters between 2009–2014.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Network of keywords in medical plants publications: Clusters between 2015–2019.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Countries network collaboration.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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