Global research trends and hotspots in gestational diabetes and long-term cardiovascular health: A bibliometric analysis

To identify emerging trends and hotspots in research regarding cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk linked to gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). A systematic bibliometric review of the literature on the risk of long-term CVD in patients with GDM between 1990 and 2022 from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) was performed by using Citespace and VOSviewer. This analysis gathered a total of 1185 articles, with 77 publications in 2019 and 119 in 2022, demonstrating a steady growth in the amount of research on the relationship between GDM and CVD in recent years. The United States of America (USA) led in national publications, followed by the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada. Key institutions included Harvard University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Oslo, with Prof. Ravi Retnakaran and Prof. Jane W. Rich-Edwards being prominent figures. The most productive journal was the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology &Metabolism , while Diabetes Care was the most influential and most co-cited journal. Common terms over the last 20 years included “risk,” “type 2 diabetes,” “cardiovascular disease,” and “gestational diabetes,” with recent focus shifting towards “prevention,” “gene expression,” and “DNA methylation”. This is the first bibliometric analysis linking CVD and GDM. Future research should investigate pathways between GDM and CVD, emphasizing gene expression and inflammation, while advocating for collaborative prevention strategies. • This study is the first to assess the future cardiovascular disease risk in women with gestational diabetes mellitus via bibliometric analysis. • Utilizing Citespace and VOSviewer, we find that "prevention," "prediction," "management," "gene expression," and "DNA methylation" have increasingly gained attention and might emerge as research hotspots in the coming years. • Future research should prioritize potential predictors, treatments, dietary modifications, and shared mechanisms in gestational diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease.