Enhancing Sleep Quality to Improve the Health of People with Chronic Diseases
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Infectious Diseases, Chronic Diseases, and Disease Prevention".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 359
Special Issue Editor
Interests: sleep; physical activity; nutrition; lifestyle; chronic disease
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Poor sleep quality increases sympathetic activity and pro-inflammatory cytokines, both of which increase insulin resistance. Advanced glycation end products are significantly increased in chronic sleep insufficiency, which could increase insulin resistance. Stage 3 is the most crucial sleep stage because of growth hormone (GH) and GH-releasing hormone (GHRH) release. They induce fat burning, bone building and general repair and regeneration. The longest part of stage 3 takes place before midnight. A delayed sleep onset suppresses the largest GH pulse, increases ghrelin and decreases leptin. Ghrelin stimulates appetite, whereas leptin does the reverse. All these changes lead to weight gain, less repair and more inflammation, predisposing the body to chronic disorders.
Astrocytes are special giant cells in brain interstitial fluids that play a major role in β amyloid and tau cleanup. Their activity is increased by GHRH. Slow-wave sleep insufficiency prohibits the optimum GHRH release, leading to an impaired peripheral clearance of extracellular β amyloid and intracellular tau neurofibrillary tangles. Accumulations of these neurotoxins begin immediately after one night of sleep insufficiency and they potentiate each other’s destructive effects on the structures and functions of neurons and cause neuronal death. This results in interference with decision-making and an increased consumption of unhealthy snacks in late sleepers. High levels of β amyloid might lead to sleep fragmentation, worsening of sleep quality and daytime somnolence. Concentration will be more difficult and performance will be reduced. Moreover, cognition will be deteriorated in the long term.
In this context, this Special Issue focuses on the most recent findings for enhancing sleep quality to improve the health of people with chronic diseases.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Comparing sleep and other lifestyle factors such as physical activity and nutrition in improving the health of people with chronic diseases;
- Interaction of sleep and other lifestyle factors such as physical activity and nutrition in restoring and maintaing health;
- Strengthening the associations of sleep quality and different chronic disease improvements;
- Mechanisms of associations of sleep quality and improvements in chronic diseases.
Dr. Abbas Smiley, MD PhD
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- sleep quality
- physical activity
- nutrition
- lifestyle
- chronic disease
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