Physiological Monitoring of Nutrition, Sleep, and Hydration in High-Demand Occupation

High-demand occupations often expose workers to repeated physical, cognitive, and environmental stressors that disrupt physiological processes, including nutrition status, sleep regulation, and hydration balance. High demand occupations include but are not limited to shift workers, firefighters, military personnel, law enforcement officers, emergency medical responders, healthcare professionals, and elite tactical units. They regularly operate under conditions of circadian misalignment, heat stress, sleep restriction, and irregular dietary intake. These occupational constraints may impair metabolic regulation, thermoregulation, cognitive performance, cardiometabolic health, and long-term disease risk.Advances in wearable biosensors, remote monitoring systems, and biomarker analytics have provided opportunities to quantify physiological strain in real-world settings. Continuous glucose monitoring, heart rate variability, actigraphy, sweat and hydration sensors, core and skin temperature devices, and dietary tracking platforms allow for assessments of energy balance, sleep quality, fluid turnover, and recovery dynamics outside of laboratory environments. Despite rapid advances, the use of these technologies in occupational nutrition research is still somewhat scattered, and clear, standardized approaches for interpreting integrated physiological data in high-demand settings have yet to be fully established.This research topic aligns with the scope of Frontiers in Nutrition by focusing on human nutrition, metabolism, hydration physiology, and their interaction with sleep and circadian biology in applied, real-world populations. Submissions that investigate well-defined high-demand populations under operational or simulated operational conditions, using objective, field-deployable, or validated laboratory methods would fit this topic. We invite original research, systematic reviews, methodological papers, and translational studies that examine:• Objective monitoring in defined occupational groups (e.g., firefighters, military personnel, healthcare workers on long shifts) of dietary intake, energy expenditure, hydration status, and sleep in operational settings• Interactions among macronutrient timing, circadian disruption, and metabolic health• Hydration strategies and thermophysiological strain in heat-exposed occupations• Biomarkers of recovery, inflammation, oxidative stress, and cardiometabolic risk in response to occupational stressors • Validation and reliability of wearable and field-deployable technologies in operational contexts: studies should evaluate the accuracy, reliability, and practical utility of monitoring systems (e.g., hydration sensors, temperature monitors, wearable metabolic trackers) compared to gold-standard or reference methods, specifically within high-demand occupational or simulated situations.• Intervention studies in high-demand occupational populations focusing on nutrition (e.g., macronutrient timing, supplementation), hydration strategies, or sleep optimization with outcomes related to physiological performance, recovery, safety or long-term health.• Hydration strategies, fluid balance and electrolyte status in heat-exposed occupations such as firefighters, military personnel or outdoor workers.This Research Topic aims to advance precision health strategies tailored to high-demand professions. Ultimately, improving physiological monitoring and targeted interventions in these populations may enhance operational readiness, reduce injury and illness risk, and mitigate long-term chronic disease burden.**Topic Editor William Adams declares that he has received royalties from Springer Nature for his book Exertional Heat Illness: A Clinical and Evidence-Based Guide (2020) and holds stock options in My Normative and Emerja Corporation. The other Topic Editors declare that they have no competing interests with regard to the subject of this Research Topic. Topic editors: A. Maleah Winkler, Caroline Smith, William M Adams Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79240/physiological-monitoring-of-nutrition-sleep-and-hydration-in-high-demand-occupation