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Excess fat around the waistline has long been blamed for increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, some forms of cancer, arthritis, sleep apnea, migraine and diabetes. Now, researchers have found that it may also increase the risk of developing restless legs syndrome (RLS), a common sleep disorder characterized by an irresistible urge to move your legs. The findings are published in the April 7, 2009 issue of the journal Neurology.
According to them, obese men and women were 42 percent more likely to have RLS than normal-weight study participants. Abdominal obesity, in particular, increased a person’s risk of developing RLA by 60 percent compared to persons with the trimmest midsections.
Five to ten percent of adults in the United States are estimated to have RLS, a disorder that impacts their sleep, daily activities and quality of life. RLS causes are still a mystery, but researchers suspect that an imbalance in the movement-regulating brain chemical dopamine plays a role. Doctors usually use drugs that increase dopamine activity to treat RLS as well.
The current study was the work of researchers from Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. It involved 65,554 women and 23,119 men participating in two ongoing comprehensive health studies - the Nurses Health Study II and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
A total of 6.4 percent of the women and 4.4 percent of the men were considered to have RLS, after they met four diagnostic criteria for the disorder recommended by RLS Foundation. The criteria were as follows: the participants had a strong urge to move their legs; the symptoms started or became worse when they were resting; their RLS symptoms got better when they moved their legs; their RLS symptoms were worse in the evening especially when they were lying down.
The study revealed that participants with a body mass index (BMI) score over 30 were nearly 1½ times more likely to have the syndrome than those who were not obese.
“These results may be important since obesity is a modifiable risk factor that is becoming increasingly common in the U.S. More research is needed to confirm whether obesity causes RLS and whether keeping a low BMI score and small waist size could help prevent RLS,” said study author Xiang Gao, MD, PhD, with the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
Explaining the findings, Gao said that obese people have lower dopamine receptor levels in the brain. “Since decreased dopamine function is believed to play a critical role in RLS as well, this could be the link between the two.”
The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
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