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Review
. 2025 Jun 13:12:1594507.
doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1594507. eCollection 2025.

Impacts of amino acid supplementation on renal function and nutritional parameters in patients with renal insufficiency: bibliometric analysis and meta-analysis

Xiaoxia Liu #  1   2 , Qiufu Li #  2 , Liyuan Zhang #  3 , Ying He  2 , Sitao Tan  2 , Xiaoyu Chen  2   3 , Kefeng Li  1
Affiliations
Review

Impacts of amino acid supplementation on renal function and nutritional parameters in patients with renal insufficiency: bibliometric analysis and meta-analysis

Xiaoxia Liu et al. Front Nutr. .

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to summarize the effects of amino acids (AA) on renal function and nutritional indices in patients with renal insufficiency (RI) after treatment and to analyze the development trend in this field.

Methods: The bibliometric evaluation of scholarly contributions in this field was conducted using the Web of Science database, with data analyzed via Bibliometrix and VOSviewer software. The randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published before January 13, 2025, were systematically retrieved from Embase, PubMed, and the Cochrane Library and meta-analyses were performed using Review Manager 5.4 software.

Results: Key areas of focus included oxidative stress, chronic renal failure, hemodialysis, inflammation, chronic kidney disease, risk, plasma, progression, L-arginine, disease, and renal failure. Nine RCTs involving 407 participants were included, AA administration demonstrated significant effects compared to placebo: Increased blood urea nitrogen (MD: 4.21, 95% CI: 1.08 to 7.35, p = 0.008), elevated renal plasma flow (MD: 30.78, 95% CI: 15.36 to 46.21, p < 0.0001), and reduced uric acid levels (MD: -0.47, 95% CI: -0.89 to -0.06, p = 0.02).

Conclusion: These findings suggest that AA supplementation may partially improve renal function in RI patients. The progression and possible mechanisms of chronic kidney disease, as well as the search for new biomarkers, will be the trend of research and development in this field.

Keywords: amino acids; bibliometrics; meta-analysis; nutritional indicators; renal function; renal insufficiency.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of study selection for meta-analysis. AA, amino acids.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Evolution of journals over time plotted with VOSviewer. In the visualization map, the color of the label reflects the sequence of the appearance of a journals. The yellower the color of a journals was, the later it appeared, and the bluer the color of a journals was, the earlier the journals appeared.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Network visualization map of terms in title/abstract fields of publications related to renal insufficiency and amino acids from 2000 to 2024. This visualized map of terms was developed when the minimum-term occurrences were placed at least 50 times. There are 85 terms that reach this threshold out of 8,497 in this field, which were divided into three clusters and colored differently. The size of the node indicates how many publications use that term.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Network visualization map of terms in the title/abstract and their distribution according to the mean frequency of appearance. The blue terms emerged first, followed by the yellow and green terms that appeared later.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Forest plots of included RCTs. (A) Pooled analysis of RCTs evaluating the effect of amino acid therapy on BUN.·(B) Pooled analysis of RCTs evaluating the effect of amino acid therapy on RPF. (C) Pooled analysis of RCTs evaluating the effect of amino acid therapy on GFR. (D) Pooled analysis of RCTs evaluating the effect of amino acid therapy on UA. (E) Pooled analysis of RCTs evaluating the effect of amino acid therapy on ALB.·(F) Pooled analysis of RCTs evaluating the effect of amino acid therapy on TP. (G) Pooled analysis of RCTs evaluating the effect of amino acid therapy on TRF. (H) Pooled analysis of RCTs evaluating the effect of amino acid therapy on BMI.
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