Restless Legs Syndrome, Thought To Affect 10 Percent of Americans, May Be The Death Of You: Report

If you're an older man that suffers from that annoying sleepless condition now known as restless leg syndrome, insomnia may be the least of your problems. According to new research on the subject, those restless legs may be the death of you.

A new study in Neurology points to a significantly higher risk of dying early in men who have the condition, though the findings are an outlier when compared to previous research, so don't panic just yet.

Research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health Xiang Gao found that men with restless leg syndrome (RLS) - the condition that is thought to affect approximately 10 percent of Americans, and causes leg spasms, the feeling that leg muscles constantly need to be stretched and usually results in a loss of sleep -have as much as a 40 percent higher risk of dying earlier than men who are not affected by RLS.

Gao and colleagues tracked men who were in their late 60s or older for a total of eight years. Out of 18,000 men that they tracked, 690 had the annoying leg muscle syndrome. Out of those 690, a total of 171 of them died in the eight year period. That's 25 percent of men with RLS dying early.

To isolate the effect of RLS on older men, Gao and colleagues separated out men with other high risk factors, such as heart disease, cancer, or high blood pressure. After doing that, they found impact of RLS on the risk of early death to be 92 percent higher than men without the syndrome. "It brings recognition to RLS, which is largely unrecognized and under-diagnosed," says Gao. "It suggests the importance to further understand (the condition)."

Still, the study is only one in a series, and it's an outlier. Four earlier studies in the United States and other nations last year found that RLS didn't raise the risk of early death. András Szentkirályi, the author of one of those studies says that Gao's focus on men older than 60 means that one should exercise caution when applying those results to a general population. Furhtermore, Gao only found the correlation, but not any underlying reasons.

"Even with these differences, I was surprised that there was such strong relations between RLS and mortality," said Szentkirályi to USA TODAY. "There still is no explanation for these findings or how to further treat it... We need more research."