Obesity raises risk of restless legs syndrome

People who are obese have a higher risk of developing the neurological disorder - restless legs syndrome (RLS). RLS causes unpleasant sensations in the legs when a person is at rest, triggering an uncontrollable urge to move the legs to get relief. The cause is unknown, but experts suspect that an imbalance in the movement-regulating brain chemical dopamine plays a role. Drugs that increase dopamine activity are sometimes used to treat RLS. Past research has shown that obese adults tend to have lower dopamine activity in the brain than their thinner counterparts, but the relationship between obesity and RLS has been unclear. Therefore, researchers from America studied 65,554 women and 23,119 men free of diabetes, arthritis, and pregnancy to find out the relationship between obesity and RLS. It was found that obese men and women were 42 percent more likely to have RLS than their normal-weight counterparts. Abdominal obesity, in particular, was linked to RLS risk. Study participants with the largest waistlines had a 60 percent higher risk than those with smaller waistlines. In theory, dopamine could help explain the connection between obesity and RLS. There are likely to be multiple mechanisms through which excess weight contributes to the neurological disorder. The findings suggest that obesity could be a risk factor for RLS. However, it does not prove that obesity leads to RLS, and further studies that follow people over time are needed to confirm obesity as a risk factor.

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