Restless Legs Syndrome - RLS and Cardiovascular Disease

A hundred pressure spikes in a single night.

Periodic leg movements in sleep raise blood pressure briefly, by 22 millimetres of mercury for selected movements in a small study and by 12 on average across all movements in a larger one. In one night, 89 people with restless legs had on average 788 such rises, measured beat by beat.

Whether heart disease follows from it is not proven. This volume gives the figures on both sides: the odds ratio of 2.07 from the largest cross-sectional study and the hazard ratio of 1.09, with an interval that includes no effect, from the four high-quality longitudinal ones. It also explains why the duration of the illness is a clue worth following, not yet a proven risk factor.

The practical part runs in both directions: what treating the legs means for the heart, and which heart medicines make the legs restless. Along with high blood pressure, stroke, kidneys, veins and pregnancy.

WHAT IS IN THE BOOK

- What the large longitudinal studies show, and where they contradict each other

- High blood pressure as the commonest coexisting condition

- Mortality: the most uncomfortable question, answered honestly

- Leg movements in sleep and brief rises in blood pressure

- The blood pressure that does not fall at night

- Iron deficiency as a factor belonging to both

- Restless legs after a stroke, and as a possible risk factor for one

- When the heart medicine is what makes the legs restless

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

For patients with high blood pressure or heart disease, for everyone who has read that RLS raises cardiac risk and wants to know what is actually established, and for health professionals in cardiology and sleep medicine.

ABOUT THE SERIES

Volume 32 of 52 in the book series on restless legs syndrome, part "RLS with Other Conditions". Every volume can be read on its own. The statements in this volume rest on 194 professional sources, each one listed individually in the reference section.