The Relationship Between Restless Legs Syndrome and Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Abstract

Objective:Restless Legs syndrome (RLS) is one of the common sleep disorders in the community. There are many studies on the relationship between sleep disorders and diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity, and metabolic dysregulation. However, the results are contradicting in the studies conducted in cases with RLS. In this study, we retrospectively examined the possible relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and RLS.Materials and Methods:The study included 107 patients (group 1) diagnosed with RLS according to the diagnostic criteria recommended by the international RLS study group and 97 patients with the diagnosis of simple snoring (group 2) among the patients who were prescribed a diagnosis of sleep disorder in the sleep laboratory. Demographic, laboratory and polysomnographic data of all cases were retrospectively reviewed.Results:There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of age, gender, smoking, and alcohol use, however, weight, neck circumference, waist circumference, and body mass index were detected significantly higher (p=0.008, p=0.020, p=0.001, p=0.002, respectively). In addition, diastolic and systolic arterial blood pressure values and total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein-cholesterol, and triglyceride levels measured at the night of the examination were significantly different between the groups, and the presence of Metabolic syndrome was observed significantly higher in the RLS group (p=0.001, p=0.001, p=0.024, p=0.033, p=0.020, p=0.002, respectively).Conclusion:The incidence of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity, and Metabolic syndrome increases in RLS patients. Further prospective studies are needed to elucidate the potential mechanisms underlying this correlation between the RLS and cardiovascular risk factors.

Keywords

• Hyperlipidemia
• hypertension
• Restless Legs syndrome
• cardiovascular risk factors
• obesity