Restless legs linked to broken hearts

The sleep-robbing condition known as restless legs syndrome (RLS) raises the risk of heart disease in older women about as much as smoking and obesity, according to a new Harvard-based study published online in the journal Circulation. “If the link to heart disease is confirmed—and there is a growing body of evidence to support that—it would show that restless legs syndrome carries a burden of future risk of a serious medical illness,” explains research team member Dr. John Winkelman, medical director of the Sleep Health Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. anal pornUncovering this link could help people with RLS pay better attention to their cardiovascular health and potentially ward off a heart attack, stroke, or other cardiovascular condition. “We can use RLS to identify those who have a higher risk of developing coronary heart disease if our findings are confirmed by future studies,” says study leader Dr. Xiang Gao, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health.