Ramadan and Health. Bibliometric study of the biomedical literature indexed in «Medline» database

To describe both editorial and thematic profile of biomedical publications related to the theme «Ramadan and Health», indexed in «Medline» database till December 31th 2018.

This is a bibliometric study via «Medline» database using the following documentation query: «Fasting» [Majr] AND («Islam» [Majr] OR Ramadan [All Fields]). Data was collected through the «Medline» Material Safety Data Sheets from the NLM Library. Publications' themes have been defined by major descriptors (Majr). The generic descriptor corresponded to the Majr word hierarchically superior in the «Medline» Mesh descriptor thesaurus.

A total of 508 articles were captured, of which 13% were reviews and 5% were randomized controlled trials. These publications were published by 272 journals belonging to 38 countries, and signed by 108 authors in first position and 398 in last position. The number of major descriptors used to index these publications related to «Ramadan and Health» was 484. Endocrine System Diseases (Diabetes mellitus) and Human Activities (Exercise) were the main major generic keywords, indexing respectively 28% and 20% of this literature.

«Ramadan and Health» is increasingly, a theme of scientific and biomedical research of great interest worldwide in order to manage health problems, especially diabetes mellitus. Expanding the scope of its applications to other global burden of disease's areas would be useful.