Gut Health in Veterinary Medicine: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Literature.
Authors: Colombino Elena, Prieto-Botella Daniel, Capucchio Maria Teresa
Journal: Animals : an open access journal from MDPI
Summary
# Editorial Summary: Gut Health in Veterinary Medicine—A Bibliometric Analysis Gut health has emerged as a significant research priority in veterinary medicine over the past two decades, with established links to improved production metrics and animal welfare outcomes. Colombino and colleagues conducted a systematic bibliometric analysis of 1,696 peer-reviewed publications from 2000–2020, examining publication trends, research focus and identified knowledge gaps across species using the Web of Science database and R-based analytical tools. The field demonstrates robust growth at 22.4% annually, though with striking species bias: approximately 69% of publications concern pigs and poultry, whilst equine, bovine, ovine, caprine and feline research remain substantially underrepresented, with China (24.7%), the USA (17.2%) and Canada (5.7%) dominating research output. Current investigations centre on three principal domains—animal nutrition, inflammatory disease prevention and microbiota characterisation—yet the scarcity of equine-specific gut health literature represents a notable gap for practitioners working with horses. For farriers, vets and other equine professionals, this analysis underscores an opportunity to drive locally-relevant research into equine digestive health and microbiota, ultimately supporting evidence-based nutritional and therapeutic protocols specific to this species rather than extrapolating findings from production animals.
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Practical Takeaways
- •Gut health research remains heavily skewed toward production animals; equine and bovine practitioners have significant knowledge gaps that warrant investigation of applicability from pig and poultry studies
- •Growing publication volume indicates gut health is increasingly recognized as important for animal welfare and performance, making it worthy of integration into practice protocols
- •Focus on microbiota, nutrition, and disease prevention suggests these are evidence-based leverage points for improving animal outcomes across species
Key Findings
- •1,696 documents on gut health in veterinary medicine were identified over 2000-2020, with annual publication growth of 22.4%
- •Research focused predominantly on pigs (34.8%), poultry (33.9%), and aquaculture species (15.0%), with minimal coverage of equine, bovine, ovine, and other companion animals
- •Main research themes centered on animal nutrition, prevention of inflammatory diseases, and microbiota composition analysis
- •China was the most productive country (24.7%), followed by USA (17.2%) and Canada (5.7%)