Bioactivity of Carrageenans in Metabolic Syndrome and Cardiovascular Diseases
, Maria Pereira 1,†, Mónica Amaral 1, João Cotas 3,4 and Leonel Pereira 3,4Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors wrote a review on the effect of carrageenans on lipids. The quality of the review is average at best.
Recommendations:
1) Review requires English editing. There are several issues with sentence construction. Please have it reviewed by an English native speaker.
2) Reduce the introduction. Too long for a review.
3) Generally review is too long. Items "2. Metabolic syndrome and 3. Carrageenan" are too large and should be part of the introduction. These 2 items should be very briefly described in the introduction itself. The entire introduction should not be more than 1 journal page, typically.
The actual review starts with "4. The potential of the carrageenan in the prevention of MetS".
4) There were no methods. Give a separate heading for "Methods". They needed to describe the studies derivation. How many total reports were found, how many were excluded, and how many were left at the end?
5) There are too many short paragraphs. For example, the entire conclusion can be written in 2 paragraphs. Please consolidate small paragraphs with the paragraph above or below.
6) Some words were written in uppercase in the middle of the sentence. Here are some examples:
"Metabolic Syndrome (MetS), and Cardiovascular Diseases 42 (CVD), Triglycerides (TG), etc".
Just use lowercase.
7) Combine Tables 1 and 2 into one table. Have subheadings within the table Animals studies and Human Studies and list the studies rather than having them in two separate tables.
8) Table footnotes and abbreviations: Not all abbreviations were listed in the footnotes. Some are missing.
You are listing abbreviations in the footnote anyways, then why did you expand certain phrases in the text of the table? For example, CGN, T, etc.
9) Overall, the review requires major reorganization.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
The authors acknowledge some shortcomings and are grateful for the reviewer' suggestions with a view to improving this manuscript.
All references have all been reviewed and updated. Are in light blue.
The entire manuscript was subject to a review.
All suggestions were answered using different colors for each reviewer. Reviewer 1 - green
Recommendations:
1) Review requires English editing. There are several issues with sentence construction. Please have it reviewed by an English native speaker.
All text has been revised.
2) Reduce the introduction. Too long for a review.
The entire introduction was reviewed, and an attempt was made to contextualize the subject in the introduction and then to particularize the themes.
3) Generally, review is too long. Items "2. Metabolic syndrome and 3. Carrageenan" are too large and should be part of the introduction. These 2 items should be very briefly described in the introduction itself. The entire introduction should not be more than 1 journal page, typically.
The actual review starts with "4. The potential of the carrageenan in the prevention of MetS".
The authors understand the commentary, but we think that, being different themes, they should be worked on separately to facilitate understanding. The pathologies must be addressed separately, under penalty of loss of information.
4) There were no methods. Give a separate heading for "Methods". They needed to describe the studies derivation. How many total reports were found, how many were excluded, and how many were left at the end?
When carrying out the review, the researchers did not have in mind an exhaustive review of the topic, especially because the number of articles is very small (11), as can be seen from the compilation in the Table. Which also explains the date of some articles. In fact, a review based on bibliometrics is not intended.
5) There are too many short paragraphs. For example, the entire conclusion can be written in 2 paragraphs. Please consolidate small paragraphs with the paragraph above or below.
A union of paragraphs was made throughout the text, as suggested.
6) Some words were written in uppercase in the middle of the sentence. Here are some examples:
"Metabolic Syndrome (MetS), and Cardiovascular Diseases 42 (CVD), Triglycerides (TG), etc.".
Just use lowercase.
Suggestion accepted and corrected.
7) Combine Tables 1 and 2 into one table. Have subheadings within the table Animals studies and Human Studies and list the studies rather than having them in two separate tables.
The tables were combined into one and the adjustments made.
8) Table footnotes and abbreviations: Not all abbreviations were listed in the footnotes. Some are missing.
You are listing abbreviations in the footnote anyways, then why did you expand certain phrases in the text of the table? For example, CGN, T, etc.
Abbreviations have been listed in the legend, in alphabetical order.
9) Overall, the review requires major reorganization.
The authors, following the recommendations, carried out a major review of the article, taking care to answer the questions.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I would like to congratulate you on your complex review on Carrageenans and their bioactivity, as well as benefits. Generally I find your manuscript well written, there are however some unclear parts and I have some suggestions which I think would improve your manuscript:
1) In row 169 you state "These are a health benefit since they are essential omegas and polyunsaturated fatty acids". I think there are words missing (like "rich in" etc.), as I don't think you were refering to carrageenans as being fatty acids.
2) Please proof-read the manuscript once more carefully, as there are some more incoherent sentences and spelling errors.
3) Please check the reference list, as it is not formatted in a consistent manner. I have found deviations from the unitary format in References no. 14, 28, 30, 34, and there might be more. Please pay more attention to this section.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
The authors acknowledge some shortcomings and are grateful for the reviewer' suggestions with a view to improving this manuscript.
All references have all been reviewed and updated. Are in light blue.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
1) Page 2, Line 51-54 - Please update the statistic, the data is outdated.
2) Page 2, Line 62 - Reference 8 is outdated, which is 2009.
3) Page 2, Line 63-64 - Not a related statement because it only refers to the USA.
4) Reference 11 and 12 - not updated.
5) Page 3, Line 143-144 - Please add the citation.
6) Reference - some references have doi and some not. Please include the doi number. Please standardize if you want to use upper-case letters.
7) Some reference is outdated - almost 40% is more that 10 years.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
The authors acknowledge some shortcomings and are grateful for the reviewer' suggestions with a view to improving this manuscript.
All references have all been reviewed and updated. Are in light blue.
The entire manuscript was subject to a review.
All suggestions were answered using different colors for each reviewer. Reviewer 3 – orange.
Reviewer 3:
1) Page 2, Line 51-54 - Please update the statistic, the data is outdated.
Update done
2) Page 2, Line 62 - Reference 8 is outdated, which is 2009.
Update done
3) Page 2, Line 63-64 - Not a related statement because it only refers to the USA.
Update done
4) Reference 11 and 12 - not updated.
Update done
5) Page 3, Line 143-144 - Please add the citation.
Adjusted situation
6) Reference - some references have doi and some not. Please include the doi number. Please standardize if you want to use upper-case letters.
Standardized references and inserted the DOI
7) Some reference is outdated - almost 40% is more that 10 years.
All references have been formatted and updated.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors have reviewed the papers on the effect of carrageenan on cardiometabolic diseases.
Major Recommendations/Concerns
1) I have made several recommendations for improvement. Some were addressed and some were not.
2) #2 should be merged with the introduction. Metabolic syndrome is known to the scientific community for a few decades. It does not require such an elaborate write-up. The same is true for cardiovascular disease and serum lipids. These two can be summed up in 2 short paragraphs and should be part of the introduction. I made this recommendation.
3) Overall, a lack of novelty in this paper dampens the enthusiasm of readers.
4) 1 to 159 lines: This should be condensed into introduction and should be no more than 80 to 90 lines.
5) It does not give any sense of security regarding the literature search. Because they did not specify the thoroughness of the search (databases searched, number of papers screened, and years of coverage of reports), there is a possibility that the authors may have missed some papers.
6) The structures are not really needed. Perhaps 1 or 2 important structures would suffice. For the remaining structures, the authors should give reference/s or place them in the supplementary file.
7) For Greek letters, symbols should be used.
Author Response
Comments to reviewers: The authors are grateful for all comments made by the reviewers.
Reviewer 1:
Authors have reviewed the papers on the effect of carrageenan on cardiometabolic diseases.
Major Recommendations/Concerns
1) I have made several recommendations for improvement. Some were addressed and some were not.
Answer 1: The author acknowledgesthe reviewer work, although from the authors point of view using external non-scientific persons who sometimes read scientific articles on the human health. We consider that some of the recommendations will not permit the readiness of the manuscript for all the person which can read the manuscript or are entering this field.
2) #2 should be merged with the introduction. Metabolic syndrome is known to the scientific community for a few decades. It does not require such an elaborate write-up. The same is true for cardiovascular disease and serum lipids. These two can be summed up in 2 short paragraphs and should be part of the introduction. I made this recommendation.
Answer 2: As above write, the Metabolic syndrome can be very well known for the scientific community, however, using one of the sentences from the national funding body: “the science needs to be for all, and not for the scientific community. Promoting the education by all, and not only for the ones who can understand”, this happens due to shorten the manuscript to the “new” data collection.
3) Overall, a lack of novelty in this paper dampens the enthusiasm of readers.
Answer 3: Actually, we cannot agree with that affirmation due to be a hot topic and controversy thematic by pro and against the application of carrageenan in foods, which are referenced in the manuscript. Furthermore, after some of the search, we did not find this information which is very relevant due to health measures (about CVD) on other review, and by the EFSA is important to analyze “what we eat and what are their impact in the Health”, thus relevant for
starting to understand the new and future road of food analysis towards a healthy and safe foods. This EFSA information is very recent and will be applied next year in all the food types, where “nutriscore” will not used anymore.
4) 1 to 159 lines: This should be condensed into introduction and should be no more than 80 to 90 lines.
Answer 4: The written above is same as this sentence.
5) It does not give any sense of security regarding the literature search. Because they did not specify the thoroughness of the search (databases searched, number of papers screened, and years of coverage of reports), there is a possibility that the authors may have missed some papers.
Answer 5: The initial search involved a total of 282 articles collected in online databases, mainly PubMed n=91; EBSCO n=40; Science Direct n=30, Scopus n=39; JsTOR n= 50; Web of Science n=32, considering research articles, books, chapters and reviews. The selected topics included the following combinations: macroalgae, carrageenans, MetS, CVD, total cholesterol.
Regarding bibliometrics, the authors have already explained that their objective was not to carry out an exhaustive compilation of information, but to carry out research that showed the relationship between carrageenans and the reduction of total cholesterol levels. Only a small number of articles were obtained (11 works compiled in the table), which reflect on the interest of researching in the area, taking into account the benefits of carrageenans in some pathologies.
The authors explained and not why they lost the articles. It is a review article and not a systematic review.
6) The structures are not really needed. Perhaps 1 or 2 important structures would suffice. For the remaining structures, the authors should give reference/s or place them in the supplementary file.
Answer 6: It was recommended by academic editor. “A figure of the structure of carrageenans should be included”.
7) For Greek letters, symbols should be used.
Answer 7: The designations of the different carrageenans (Figure 1), were all corrected to Greek letters, as requested.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I suggest you read the comments of all reviewers once more and revise the manuscript very carefully. I have still found a number of errors in the references (quite a few actually) and the reference list is still not uniform. There are also some syntax and grammar errors left.
Author Response
Reviewer 2:
Dear authors,
I suggest you read the comments of all reviewers once more and revise the manuscript very carefully. I have still found a number of errors in the references (quite a few actually) and the reference list is still not uniform. There are also some syntax and grammar errors left.
Answer: The entire manuscript has been proofread by a native English speaker.
The References list has been revised.
