Restless Legs Syndrome - Epidemiology

Epidemiology

Claims about the prevalence of restless legs syndrome can be confusing because its severity and frequency varies enormously between individual sufferers. RLS affects an estimated 7% to 10% of the general population in North America and Europe. A minority of sufferers (around 2.7% of the population) experience daily or severe symptoms. RLS is twice as common in women as in men, and Caucasians are more prone to RLS than people of African descent. RLS occurs in 3% of individuals from the Mediterranean or Middle Eastern region, and in 1-5% of those from the Far East, indicating that different genetic or environmental factors, including diet, may play a role in the prevalence of this syndrome. With age, RLS becomes more common, and RLS diagnosed at an older age runs a more severe course.

RLS is even more common in individuals with iron deficiency, pregnancy and end-stage renal disease. Neurologic conditions linked to RLS include Parkinson disease, spinal cerebellar atrophy, spinal stenosis, lumbosacral radiculopathy and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2. Approximately 80–90% of people with RLS also have periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD), which causes slow "jerks" or flexions of the affected body part. These occur during sleep (PLMS = periodic limb movement while sleeping) or while awake (PLMW—periodic limb movement while waking).

The National Sleep Foundation's 1998 Sleep in America poll showed that up to 25 percent of pregnant women developed RLS during the third trimester.