How Are You Sleeping? Why Nutrition Professionals Should Ask Their Patients About Sleep Habits

Abstract

Current literature has identified relationships among sleep, nutrition, and diet-related chronic diseases; however, knowledge about how sleep influences diet-related diseases is lacking in dietetics practice. This narrative review briefly explains sleep physiology and outlines the relationships between sleep duration and quality and common nutrition-related diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and cancer. Additionally, the review discusses how sleep influences wound healing and pregnancy outcomes and why hospitalized patients are likely to experience sleep problems. Plausible mechanisms explaining the relationships between sleep and disease are presented. Finally, commonly used sleep assessment tools and interventions are reviewed. Given the importance of sleep to health, dietitians should not only be aware of the role sleep plays in disease development and prevention but also assess sleep when feasible and refer patients and clients who are at high risk for sleep problems to a sleep clinic or community program that can address sleep issues.

Teaching points:

• Sleep duration and quality influence risk and outcomes of common nutrition-related diseases.

• Sleep health evaluation is a missing piece in dietetic practice.

• There are easy-to-use, validated tools that dietitians can use to screen for sleep problems in order to refer patients and clients to sleep experts.

Keywords:

• Sleep
• chronic disease
• nutrition
• physiology
• sleep measurement

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch #1012976; and Michigan AgBioResearch.