The current study aimed to provide a comprehensive bibliometric overview of the literature on curcumin, complementing the previous reviews and meta-analyses on its potential health benefits. Bibliometric data for the current analysis were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection database, using the search string TOPIC=("curcumin*"), and analyzed by the VOSviewer software. The search yielded 18,036 manuscripts. The ratio of original articles to reviews was 10.4:1. More than half of the papers have been published since 2014. The major contributing countries were the United States, China, India, Japan, and South Korea. These publications were mainly published in journals representing the following scientific disciplines: biochemistry, chemistry, oncology, and pharmacology. There was a significant positive correlation between the total publication count and averaged citations per manuscript for affiliations, but not for countries/regions and journals. Chemicals that were frequently mentioned in the keywords of evaluated curcumin publications included curcuminoids, resveratrol, chitosan, flavonoids, quercetin, and polyphenols. The literature mainly focused on curcumin's effects against cancer, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Cancer types most frequently investigated were breast, colon, colorectal, pancreatic, and prostate cancers.

Department of Agronomy Food Natural Resources Animals and Environment Agripolis Campus University of Padova 35020 Padova Italy

Department of Behavioral Neurobiology Institute of Neurobiology Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 1000 Sofia Bulgaria

Department of Experimental Pathology Prof Dr Ion Chiricuta The Oncology Institute 400037 Cluj Napoca Romania

Department of Food Science and Technology School of Agriculture and Biology Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai 200240 China

Department of Natural Drugs Faculty of Pharmacy University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno Palackého tř 1946 1 612 42 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences University of Padova 35020 Padova Italy

Department of Pharmaceutical Botany Iuliu Haţieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy 23 Ghe Marinescu Street 400337 Cluj Napoca Romania

Department of Pharmacognosy University of Vienna 1090 Vienna Austria

Department of Pharmacy University G d'Annunzio of Chieti Pescara Via dei Vestini 31 66100 Chieti Italy

GLOBE Program Association Grandville MI USA

Institute of Molecular Biology Roumen Tsanev Department of Biochemical Pharmacology and Drug Design Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Acad G Bonchev Str Bl 21 1113 Sofia Bulgaria

Laboratory of Chromatography Institute of Advanced Horticulture Research of Transylvania University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine 400372 Cluj Napoca Romania

MEDFUTURE Research Center for Advanced Medicine 400037 Cluj Napoca Romania

Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology Applied Oral Sciences Faculty of Dentistry The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China

Pharmaceutical Institute University of Bonn An der Immenburg 4 53121 Bonn Germany

Research Center for Functional Genomics Biomedicine and Translational Medicine Institute of Doctoral Studies Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy 400037 Cluj Napoca Romania

School of Pharmacy University of Camerino 62032 Camerino Italy

The Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding Polish Academy of Sciences Jastrzębiec 05 552 Magdalenka Poland

The National Institute of Poultry Husbandry Harper Adams University Shropshire TF10 8NB UK

Warsaw University of Life Sciences Faculty of Applied Informatics and Mathematics 02 787 Warsaw Poland

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Jayaprakasha G., Rao L.J.M., Sakariah K. Chemistry and biological activities of C. longa. Trends Food Sci. Technol. 2005;16:533–548. doi: 10.1016/j.tifs.2005.08.006. DOI

Lee W.-H., Loo C.-Y., Bebawy M., Luk F., Mason R.S., Rohanizadeh R. Curcumin and its derivatives: Their application in neuropharmacology and neuroscience in the 21st century. Curr. Neuropharmacol. 2013;11:338–378. doi: 10.2174/1570159X11311040002. PubMed DOI PMC

Aggarwal B.B., Kumar A., Bharti A.C. Anticancer potential of curcumin: Preclinical and clinical studies. Anticancer Res. 2003;23:363–398. PubMed

Yeung A.W.K., Tzvetkov N.T., El-Tawil O.S., Bungǎu S.G., Abdel-Daim M.M., Atanasov A.G. Antioxidants: Scientific Literature Landscape Analysis. Oxid. Med. Cell. Longev. 2019;2019:8278454. doi: 10.1155/2019/8278454. PubMed DOI PMC

Anand P., Kunnumakkara A.B., Newman R.A., Aggarwal B.B. Bioavailability of curcumin: Problems and promises. Mol. Pharm. 2007;4:807–818. doi: 10.1021/mp700113r. PubMed DOI

Yang F., Lim G.P., Begum A.N., Ubeda O.J., Simmons M.R., Ambegaokar S.S., Chen P.P., Kayed R., Glabe C.G., Frautschy S.A. Curcumin inhibits formation of amyloid β oligomers and fibrils, binds plaques, and reduces amyloid in vivo. J. Biol. Chem. 2005;280:5892–5901. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M404751200. PubMed DOI

Cole G., Yang F., Lim G., Cummings J., Masterman D., Frautschy S. A rationale for curcuminoids for the prevention or treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Curr. Med. Chem. Immunol. Endocr. Metab. Agents. 2003;3:15–25. doi: 10.2174/1568013033358761. DOI

Ono K., Hasegawa K., Naiki H., Yamada M. Curcumin has potent anti-amyloidogenic effects for Alzheimer’s β-amyloid fibrils in vitro. J. Neurosci. Res. 2004;75:742–750. doi: 10.1002/jnr.20025. PubMed DOI

Ringman J.M., Frautschy S.A., Cole G.M., Masterman D.L., Cummings J.L. A potential role of the curry spice curcumin in Alzheimer’s disease. Curr. Alzheimer Res. 2005;2:131–136. doi: 10.2174/1567205053585882. PubMed DOI PMC

Tewari D., Stankiewicz A.M., Mocan A., Sah A.N., Tzvetkov N.T., Huminiecki L., Horbańczuk J.O., Atanasov A.G. Ethnopharmacological approaches for dementia therapy and significance of natural products and herbal drugs. Front. Aging Neurosci. 2018;10:3. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2018.00003. PubMed DOI PMC

Hatcher H., Planalp R., Cho J., Torti F., Torti S. Curcumin: From ancient medicine to current clinical trials. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 2008;65:1631–1652. doi: 10.1007/s00018-008-7452-4. PubMed DOI PMC

Sharma R., Gescher A., Steward W. Curcumin: The story so far. Eur. J. Cancer. 2005;41:1955–1968. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2005.05.009. PubMed DOI

Yeung A.W.K. Sex differences in brain responses to food stimuli: A meta-analysis on neuroimaging studies. Obes. Rev. 2018;19:1110–1115. doi: 10.1111/obr.12697. PubMed DOI

Yeung A.W.K., Goto T.K., Leung W.K. Basic taste processing recruits bilateral anteroventral and middle dorsal insulae: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of fMRI studies. Brain Behav. 2017;7:e00655. doi: 10.1002/brb3.655. PubMed DOI PMC

Yeung A.W.K., Goto T.K., Leung W.K. Brain responses to stimuli mimicking dental treatment among non-phobic individuals: A meta-analysis. Oral Dis. 2017 doi: 10.1111/odi.12819. PubMed DOI

Yeung A.W.K., Goto T.K., Leung W.K. Affective value, intensity and quality of liquid tastants/food discernment in the human brain: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis. Neuroimage. 2018;169:189–199. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.12.034. PubMed DOI

Sahebkar A., Cicero A.F., Simental-Mendía L.E., Aggarwal B.B., Gupta S.C. Curcumin downregulates human tumor necrosis factor-α levels: A systematic review and meta-analysis ofrandomized controlled trials. Pharmacol. Res. 2016;107:234–242. doi: 10.1016/j.phrs.2016.03.026. PubMed DOI

Daily J.W., Yang M., Park S. Efficacy of turmeric extracts and curcumin for alleviating the symptoms of joint arthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials. J. Med. Food. 2016;19:717–729. doi: 10.1089/jmf.2016.3705. PubMed DOI PMC

Sahebkar A. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials investigating the effects of curcumin on blood lipid levels. Clin. Nutr. 2014;33:406–414. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2013.09.012. PubMed DOI

Yeung A.W.K., Heinrich M., Atanasov A.G. Ethnopharmacology—A Bibliometric Analysis of a Field of Research Meandering Between Medicine and Food Science? Front. Pharmacol. 2018;9:215. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.00215. PubMed DOI PMC

Yeung A.W.K. Bibliometric study on functional magnetic resonance imaging literature (1995–2017) concerning chemosensory perception. Chemosens. Percept. 2018;11:42–50. doi: 10.1007/s12078-018-9243-0. DOI

Yeung A.W.K., Tzvetkov N.T., Atanasov A.G. When neuroscience meets pharmacology: A neuropharmacology literature analysis. Front. Neurosci. 2018;12:852. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00852. PubMed DOI PMC

Yeung A.W.K., Mocan A., Atanasov A.G. Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food: A bibliometric analysis of the most cited papers focusing on nutraceuticals and functional foods. Food Chem. 2018;269:455–465. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2018.06.139. PubMed DOI

Yeung A.W.K., El-Demerdash A., Berindan-Neagoe I., Atanasov A.G., Ho Y.-S. Molecular Responses of Cancers by Natural Products: Modifications of Autophagy Revealed by Literature Analysis. Crit. Rev. Oncog. 2018;23:347–370. doi: 10.1615/CritRevOncog.2018027566. PubMed DOI

Van Eck N.J., Waltman L. Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics. 2009;84:523–538. doi: 10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3. PubMed DOI PMC

Patil T., Srinivasan M. Hypocholesteremic effect of curcumin in induced hypercholesteremic rats. Indian J. Exp. Biol. 1971;9:167–169. PubMed

Rao D.S., Sekhara N.C., Satyanarayana M., Srinivasan M. Effect of curcumin on serum and liver cholesterol levels in the rat. J. Nutr. 1970;100:1307–1315. doi: 10.1093/jn/100.11.1307. PubMed DOI

Bayet-Robert M., Morvan D. Metabolomics reveals metabolic targets and biphasic responses in breast cancer cells treated by curcumin alone and in association with docetaxel. PLoS ONE. 2013;8:e57971. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057971. PubMed DOI PMC

Wang J., Zhang J., Zhang C.-J., Wong Y.K., Lim T.K., Hua Z.-C., Liu B., Tannenbaum S.R., Shen H.-M., Lin Q. In situ proteomic profiling of curcumin targets in HCT116 colon cancer cell line. Sci. Rep. 2016;6:22146. doi: 10.1038/srep22146. PubMed DOI PMC

Masoumi A., Goldenson B., Ghirmai S., Avagyan H., Zaghi J., Abel K., Zheng X., Espinosa-Jeffrey A., Mahanian M., Liu P.T. 1α, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D 3 Interacts with Curcuminoids to Stimulate Amyloid-β Clearance by Macrophages of Alzheimer’s Disease Patients. J. Alzheimers Dis. 2009;17:703–717. doi: 10.3233/JAD-2009-1080. PubMed DOI

Karlstetter M., Lippe E., Walczak Y., Moehle C., Aslanidis A., Mirza M., Langmann T. Curcumin is a potent modulator of microglial gene expression and migration. J. Neuroinflamm. 2011;8:125. doi: 10.1186/1742-2094-8-125. PubMed DOI PMC

Sharma R.A., Euden S.A., Platton S.L., Cooke D.N., Shafayat A., Hewitt H.R., Marczylo T.H., Morgan B., Hemingway D., Plummer S.M. Phase I clinical trial of oral curcumin: Biomarkers of systemic activity and compliance. Clin. Cancer Res. 2004;10:6847–6854. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-04-0744. PubMed DOI

Dhillon N., Aggarwal B.B., Newman R.A., Wolff R.A., Kunnumakkara A.B., Abbruzzese J.L., Ng C.S., Badmaev V., Kurzrock R. Phase II trial of curcumin in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Clin. Cancer Res. 2008;14:4491–4499. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-08-0024. PubMed DOI

Plummer S.M., Holloway K.A., Manson M.M., Munks R.J., Kaptein A., Farrow S., Howells L. Inhibition of cyclo-oxygenase 2 expression in colon cells by the chemopreventive agent curcumin involves inhibition of NF-κB activation via the NIK/IKK signalling complex. Oncogene. 1999;18:6013–6020. doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1202980. PubMed DOI

Brouet I., Ohshima H. Curcumin, an anti-tumor promoter and anti-inflammatory agent, inhibits induction of nitric oxide synthase in activated macrophages. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 1995;206:533–540. doi: 10.1006/bbrc.1995.1076. PubMed DOI

Anitha A., Maya S., Deepa N., Chennazhi K., Nair S., Tamura H., Jayakumar R. Efficient water soluble O-carboxymethyl chitosan nanocarrier for the delivery of curcumin to cancer cells. Carbohydr. Polym. 2011;83:452–461. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2010.08.008. DOI

Das R.K., Kasoju N., Bora U. Encapsulation of curcumin in alginate-chitosan-pluronic composite nanoparticles for delivery to cancer cells. Nanomedicine. 2010;6:153–160. doi: 10.1016/j.nano.2009.05.009. PubMed DOI

Surh Y.-J. Molecular mechanisms of chemopreventive effects of selected dietary and medicinal phenolic substances. Mutat. Res. Fundam. Mol. Mech. Mutagenes. 1999;428:305–327. doi: 10.1016/S1383-5742(99)00057-5. PubMed DOI

Yeung A.W.K., Goto T.K., Leung W.K. The Changing Landscape of Neuroscience Research, 2006–2015: A Bibliometric Study. Front. Neurosci. 2017;11:120. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00120. PubMed DOI PMC

Ringman J.M., Frautschy S.A., Teng E., Begum A.N., Bardens J., Beigi M., Gylys K.H., Badmaev V., Heath D.D., Apostolova L.G., et al. Oral curcumin for Alzheimer’s disease: Tolerability and efficacy in a 24-week randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled study. Alzheimer’s Res. Ther. 2012;4:43. doi: 10.1186/alzrt146. PubMed DOI PMC

Kurd S.K., Smith N., VanVoorhees A., Troxel A.B., Badmaev V., Seykora J.T., Gelfand J.M. Oral curcumin in the treatment of moderate to severe psoriasis vulgaris: A prospective clinical trial. J. Am. Acad. Dermatol. 2008;58:625–631. doi: 10.1016/j.jaad.2007.12.035. PubMed DOI PMC

Chainani-Wu N., Silverman S., Jr., Reingold A., Bostrom A., Mc Culloch C., Lozada-Nur F., Weintraub J. A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial of curcuminoids in oral lichen planus. Phytomedicine. 2007;14:437–446. doi: 10.1016/j.phymed.2007.05.003. PubMed DOI

Panahi Y., Rahimnia A.R., Sharafi M., Alishiri G., Saburi A., Sahebkar A. Curcuminoid treatment for knee osteoarthritis: A randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Phytother. Res. 2014;28:1625–1631. doi: 10.1002/ptr.5174. PubMed DOI

Panahi Y., Hosseini M.S., Khalili N., Naimi E., Simental-Mendía L.E., Majeed M., Sahebkar A. Effects of curcumin on serum cytokine concentrations in subjects with metabolic syndrome: A post-hoc analysis of a randomized controlled trial. Biomed. Pharmacother. 2016;82:578–582. doi: 10.1016/j.biopha.2016.05.037. PubMed DOI

Ganjali S., Sahebkar A., Mahdipour E., Jamialahmadi K., Torabi S., Akhlaghi S., Ferns G., Parizadeh S.M.R., Ghayour-Mobarhan M. Investigation of the effects of curcumin on serum cytokines in obese individuals: A randomized controlled trial. Sci. World J. 2014;2014:898361. doi: 10.1155/2014/898361. PubMed DOI PMC

Ryan J.L., Heckler C.E., Ling M., Katz A., Williams J.P., Pentland A.P., Morrow G.R. Curcumin for radiation dermatitis: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of thirty breast cancer patients. Radiat. Res. 2013;180:34–43. doi: 10.1667/RR3255.1. PubMed DOI PMC

Peterson C.T., Vaughn A.R., Sharma V., Chopra D., Mills P.J., Peterson S.N., Sivamani R.K. Effects of turmeric and curcumin dietary supplementation on human gut microbiota: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled pilot study. J. Evid.-Based Integr. Med. 2018;23 doi: 10.1177/2515690X18790725. PubMed DOI PMC

Kanai M., Otsuka Y., Otsuka K., Sato M., Nishimura T., Mori Y., Kawaguchi M., Hatano E., Kodama Y., Matsumoto S. A phase I study investigating the safety and pharmacokinetics of highly bioavailable curcumin (Theracurmin®) in cancer patients. Cancer Chemother. Pharmacol. 2013;71:1521–1530. doi: 10.1007/s00280-013-2151-8. PubMed DOI

Greil R., Greil-Ressler S., Weiss L., Schönlieb C., Magnes T., Radl B., Bolger G.T., Vcelar B., Sordillo P.P. A phase 1 dose-escalation study on the safety, tolerability and activity of liposomal curcumin (Lipocurc™) in patients with locally advanced or metastatic cancer. Cancer Chemother. Pharmacol. 2018;82:695–706. doi: 10.1007/s00280-018-3654-0. PubMed DOI PMC

Shoba G., Joy D., Joseph T., Rajendran M.M.R., Srinivas P. Influence of piperine on the pharmacokinetics of curcumin in animals and human volunteers. Planta Med. 1998;64:353–356. doi: 10.1055/s-2006-957450. PubMed DOI

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1

Bioactive Molecules and Their Mechanisms of Action