Untapped Potential of “Medical Foods” in Developed & Developing Nations: A Mixed Method Study by a Systematic Review with Scientometric Analysis

Abstract

Background: Currently medical foods for sick and healthy persons are gaining momentum globally from its nascent stage; so it is useful to study this area, not only for patients and clinicians, but also for public health experts across the globe. Methods: Systematic review as per PRISMA (2009) guidelines on key search word: “Medical Foods” was done from all major search engines; where any kind of full text article and abstract was available till 30th September 2014 from last 40 years, later on Scientometric analysis till this search date, across developed and developing world was done. Only published data on medical foods role in any kind of disease and health physiology and health pathology available globally from both developed and developing countries was included and analyzed in our study. All sort of unpublished data as well as medical foods biochemical studies were excluded from our study. Results: Analysis of 50 articles out of 150 articles searched revealed that; Medical foods research is concentrated mainly in developed countries (e.g. USA), with very few research in context of developing countries such as India (86% Vs 04%).The highest number of publications were from year 2012(26%) and belonged to English language(98%). The Scientific research publication papers (60%) with maximum citations between (5- 10/reference) were found to be 54%. Conclusions: Medical foods strict regulations and monitoring processes need to remain active globally, otherwise its real potential can be lost in future. Medical foods research area needs promotion in developing countries, as there is a lot of scope of its development in these nations.