Academic Editor: Guangyang Liu Received: 9 July 2025 Revised: 11 August 2025 Accepted: 3 September 2025 Published: 4 September 2025 Citation: Gunasekaran, S.; Sivaji, S.; Vadakkan, K.; Nwe, S.Y.; Jayashan, S.S.; Sukrong, S. Global Research Trends on Nanoplastics in Food: A Bibliometric Analysis of Human Health Concerns. Foods 2025, 14, 3102. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/foods14173102 Copyright: © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). Article Global Research Trends on Nanoplastics in Food: A Bibliometric Analysis of Human Health Concerns Suriyakala Gunasekaran 1 , Sathiyaraj Sivaji 2 , Kayeen Vadakkan 3 , San Yoon Nwe 1 , Sanith Sri Jayashan 1 and Suchada Sukrong 1,4, * 1 Department of Pharmacognosy and Pharmaceutical Botany, Center of Excellence in DNA Barcoding of Thai Medicinal Plants, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 103300, Thailand; suriyakala.g@chula.ac.th (S.G.); sanyoonnwe@gmail.com (S.Y.N.); sanith@tech.sab.ac.lk (S.S.J.) 2 School of Agro-Industry, Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai 57100, Thailand; sathiyarajs92@gmail.com 3 Amala Integrated Medical Research Department, Amala Institute of Medical Sciences, Thrissur 680555, Kerala, India; kayeenvadakkan@gmail.com 4 Chulalongkorn School of Integrated Innovation, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 103300, Thailand * Correspondence: suchada.su@chula.ac.th Abstract The increasing prevalence of nanoplastics (NPs) in food and their potential implications for human health have become a growing concern in scientific and public health discourse. Using the Scopus database, this bibliometric analysis provides a comprehensive overview of global research trends on NPs in food from 2015 to 2024. Results show a significant increase in publications and citations post-2019. China is the top-ranked country in terms of the number of publications, citations, collaborations, affiliations, and funding sponsors. The most impactful documents were review articles, indicating that this research field is currently in a synthesis stage. The most productive source was Science of the Total Environment, with 21 articles, while 9 of the top 10 most productive journals were published by Elsevier, highlighting the field’s concentration in high-impact outlets. The most prolific authors were Wang, J., and Li, Y; Li, Y. was also the author with the most citation influence, with a h-index of 9. Keyword co-occurrence analysis showed seven thematic clusters formed from 50 individual keywords; the dominant terms were microplastics, NPs, and human health. These findings illustrate an evolving and interdisciplinary research field centered on evaluating the risks and detection of NPs in food and their implications for public health. Keywords: bibliometric analysis; food; human health; nanoplastics; VOSviewer 1. Introduction Plastics have become a part of our lives in the 21st century, with products involving plastics playing an essential role in delivering the food we consume and in things that we use every day [1]. Plastics stay tied to various commercial matters as they are cheap, easy to produce, versatile, and hydrophobic. Global plastic production began around the 1950s and later increased significantly due to its widespread use in daily life [2]. Since then, global plastic production has increased from 1.5 million tonnes per annum to 374.8 million tonnes in 2019. A brief dip in production was observed in 2020 (375.5 million tonnes) due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by further increases in 2022 (390.7 million tonnes) [3]. The trend of increasing global plastic production is expected to continue further, with global production levels of plastics projected to reach in the region of Foods 2025, 14, 3102 https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14173102