FUELING THE FUTURE: A SCIENTOMETRIC JOURNEY THROUGH SPORTS NUTRITION RESEARCH

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate the development of sports nutrition worldwide and the trends in publishing within the highly-regarded Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases. The study utilised ScientoPy to analyse various factors such as the number of publications, primary research themes, the authors with the highest levels of activity, frequently used keywords by authors, preferred sources, and institutional data. In order to conduct this analysis, 1,527 entries from the Scopus and WoS databases were reconciled. The Scopus and WoS databases have revealed an increasing trend in sports nutrition research, with Sport Science being the most popular academic discipline. The keyword “Muscle” has significantly increased in popularity in 2019 and 2020. The five most commonly used keywords in this research field are “Sports nutrition”, “Exercise”, “Sport performance”, “Nutrition”, and “Dietary supplements”. The Australian Institute of Sport has emerged as the world’s leading research institution in sports nutrition. This study has identified the primary areas of research, frequently used keywords, related studies, and the most prominent institutions and researchers in sports nutrition. It provides readers and future researchers with a global perspective on the key topics in sports nutrition. It presents various analyses to help structure data for developing robust theories and practices in this field.