Research Hotspots and Frontier Evolution in Synergistic Nutrition: A Bibliometric Analysis Using a CiteSpace

Objective: To examine the knowledge structure, research hotspots, and frontier evolution of synergistic nutrition using bibliometric methods, with directional validation through an auxiliary pathway based on an independent database.
Methods: The Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) was used as the primary data source, and CiteSpace was applied to visualize the literature on synergistic nutrition published between 2007 and 2026. Analyses included annual publication trends, keyword co-occurrence and clustering, author and cited-author networks, reference co-citation, burst detection, and dual-map overlay of journals. In parallel, an auxiliary validation pathway based on PubMed and bibliometrix was constructed to assess the field’s overall growth, thematic continuity, and recent frontier expansion.
Results: The primary WoSCC analysis included 16,472 publications. From 2007 to 2025, annual output increased from 248 to 2,129 publications, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.69% and a strong log-linear fit (R² = 0.992). Keyword and co-citation analyses showed that the field was structured mainly around diet quality, dietary patterns, food matrix, gut microbiota, and ultra-processed foods. The research focus progressively shifted from early nutritional epidemiology topics, represented by coronary heart disease, dietary fat, and nutrient intake, toward a more integrated framework encompassing food processing, gut microbiota, bioavailability, and translational nutrition. The dual-map overlay indicated marked cross-disciplinary knowledge flows. The auxiliary pathway showed good directional concordance with the primary pathway in overall growth, thematic continuity, and recent frontier expansion, supporting the robustness of the findings.
Conclusion: Synergistic nutrition is evolving from a nutrient-centered perspective toward a more integrated framework centered on dietary patterns, food matrix, and host biological response. Independent database validation further strengthens this inference, suggesting that the field is emerging not merely as an extension of nutritional epidemiology, but as an integrative framework for understanding food–host interactions in a systems-oriented way.