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White Paper Preview: Intestinal flora hot spots, a little tired

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Continuing to spoil the content of the white paper that we are about to release, which I personally find interesting - the analysis of research keywords.

我们看从2000年至2023年这24年的数据,除了用来检索的“肠道菌群”“菌群”等核心词汇外,前20位中频次最高的是益生菌(Probiotics), 相关关键词还包括乳酸杆菌、双歧杆菌、益生元等高频关键词。 Inflammation、Obesity、IBD、CRC、Dysbiosis、Antibiotics等也有较高的频次。 短链脂肪酸(Short-Chain Fatty Acids)、代谢组学(Metabolomics)、饮食(Diet)也入选前20位。

White Paper Preview: Intestinal flora hot spots, a little tired

The top 20 keywords in terms of word frequency from 2000 to 2023

We also made a word cloud, the higher the ranking, the bigger the font, you can intuitively feel the hot spots.

White Paper Preview: Intestinal flora hot spots, a little tired

Top 100 keyword word clouds in terms of word frequency from 2000 to 2023

Let's take a separate look at the situation from 2019 to 2023, and the gut-brain axis will be in the top 20 word frequency rankings, which is indeed one of the fast-growing research hotspots. Metabolomics has been further ranked further, reflecting the key importance of this technology in research such as mining mechanisms of action.

White Paper Preview: Intestinal flora hot spots, a little tired

The top 20 keywords in terms of word frequency from 2019 to 2023

In addition, in the cloud map from 2019 to 2023, we can see some words related to the pandemic, and intestinal microbiota researchers have also made their own contributions during this special day.

White Paper Preview: Intestinal flora hot spots, a little tired

Top 100 keyword word clouds in terms of word frequency from 2019 to 2023

I don't know how you feel when you see those familiar keywords in the top 20 of "stable"? Overall, I took a deep breath and felt very unpleasantly surprised!

To put it simply, I think there are three issues here.

First, although there are still many unsolved mysteries in the study of intestinal microbiota, which is the mainstream frontier of life sciences and a frequent visitor to top journals such as CNS, it is already in the rhythm of rapidly entering the mature track, the system is basically mature, the hot spots are preliminarily finalized, the competition is gradually strengthened, and the surprises are no longer enough.

Second, low-level replicate studies will be less and less meaningful. If we can't make good use of the already mature intestinal microbiota research tools, design and tackle major scientific problems, and dig deep into the mechanisms, it may be a waste to simply do some correlation analysis and intervention research.

In recent years, the number of relevant research papers in the United States has stabilized at more than 2,000 and less than 3,000, which should be due to the overall control of research content by fund management agencies, maintaining a certain scale of funding, but not scattering distribution, to ensure that research remains high and not just in quantity.

This is something that we should ponder and learn from.

White Paper Preview: Intestinal flora hot spots, a little tired

Top 5 countries in terms of annual publication from 2000 to 2023

Third, from the perspective of clinical and industrial transformation, we can also intuitively feel that this field has begun to weaken, or to put it better, it has quickly entered the stage of competition in the stock market. Probiotics (including LBP), prebiotics, FMT, and even probiotics have been in a hot position for more than a decade - and the related industrial transformation is indeed running fast in the Chinese market. But in addition, it is difficult to hear more innovative voices in the world, and there has been no loud voice for a long time in subdivisions such as intestinal microbiota detection and individualized nutrition, which attracted much attention in the early days.

Of course, the entire life sciences and big health field has had a similar situation over the years. Maybe this is the law, this is the "life". We must clearly know the stage of development of the industry, and we must clearly know how to plan, design and carry out the research and industrialization of intestinal flora.

Conflict of Interest Statement

Conflict of Interest Statement

He is the co-founder and executive editor of iMeta journal, holds positions in professional institutions such as national societies, and serves as a university chair professor.

However, readers should be reminded that the company he founded and mainly works in, Beijing Warm Heart Biotechnology Research Institute Co., Ltd., is a for-profit commercial organization, and he also serves as chairman and director of this company and a number of affiliated companies.

In addition, he is also a consultant or consultant officially employed by Shanghai Pharmaceutical, H&H Group, Mengniu Group and other enterprises, and provides strategy, product and other consulting services for many other enterprises.

Mr. Warmheart benefits from the above-mentioned for-profit organizations through shareholdings, salaries, dividends and consulting fees, and although he always wants to uphold a scientific, objective and impartial attitude at the time of writing, the following conflicts of interest may inevitably exist due to the above reasons:

  • Loss of rigor, objectivity, and professionalism in science communication due to commercial motives.
  • Emphasis is placed on the products and services of interested companies and other potential options are neglected.
  • Emphasize the strengths of the stakeholder companies and downplay their weaknesses.

In order to avoid and reduce the non-objectivity caused by conflicts of interest, Mr. Warmheart will take the following measures:

  • This statement is made public, clearly indicating the relationship between the interested companies.
  • Evaluate all organizations, including stakeholder companies, objectively and fairly.
  • Readers are encouraged to make criticisms and suggestions and to improve them.

When reading Mr. Warmheart's articles, readers should pay attention to understanding his business background, and maintain rational judgment and critical thinking.