Ramadan and public health: A bibliometric analysis of top cited articles from 2004 to 2019

Abstract Objective The present bibliometric study aimed to identify and perform the analysis of top one hundred cited publications on Ramadan fasting and health. Methods The Web of Science database was searched for publication analyses of the papers published from January 2004 till June 2019. The search was performed using keywords “Ramadan” AND “Health” OR “Fast*”. The descriptive analysis was performed using SPSS (version 20) software. The coauthor collaborations and keywords were analyzed using VOS viewer software (version 1.6.11). Results The present study found that the United Kingdom was the most productive country (n = 15) followed by Turkey (n = 13), Tunisia (n = 12) and Saudi Arabia (n = 11). The most prominent institution was National Center of Medicine and Science in Sports, Tunisia (n = 7) followed by King Saud University, Saudi Arabia (n = 6) and Loughborough University, United Kingdom (n = 5). Conclusion The most frequently occurring keywords in this analysis were Ramadan, fasting, exercise, Ramadan fasting and physical performance. The present study provides insight into the impactful papers pertaining to Ramadan fasting and associated health benefits.