Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a sensorimotor disorder with an age-dependent prevalence of up to 10% in the general population above 65 years of age. Affected individuals suffer from uncomfortable sensations and an urge to move in the lower limbs that occurs mainly in resting situations during the evening or at night. Moving the legs or walking leads to an improvement of symptoms. Concomitantly, patients report sleep disturbances with consequences such as reduced daytime functioning. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWA) for RLS in 922 cases and 1,526 controls (using 301,406 SNPs) followed by a replication of 76 candidate SNPs in 3,935 cases and 5,754 controls, all of European ancestry. Herein, we identified six RLS susceptibility loci of genome-wide significance, two of them novel: an intergenic region on chromosome 2p14 (rs6747972, P = 9.03 × 10−11, OR = 1.23) and a locus on 16q12.1 (rs3104767, P = 9.4 × 10−19, OR = 1.35) in a linkage disequilibrium block of 140 kb containing the 5′-end of TOX3 and the adjacent non-coding RNA BC034767.

In this large study, the serum concentrations of L and Z were not related to the prevalence of ARM. However, the large proportion of study participants taking L and/or Z supplementation may have affected these results.

MSP participants with invasive breast cancer can generally be treated with less intensive surgical and systemic therapy than non-participants, even if interval cancers are also taken into account. Future studies should also investigate quality of life after a diagnosis of invasive carcinoma in screening participants.

In a cohort study among 2751 members (71.5% females) of the German and Swiss RLS patient organizations changes in restless legs syndrome (RLS) severity over time was assessed and the impact on quality of life, sleep quality and depressive symptoms was analysed. A standard set of scales (RLS severity scale IRLS, SF-36, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale) in mailed questionnaires was repeatedly used to assess RLS severity and health status over time and a 7-day diary once to assess short-term variations. A clinically relevant change of the RLS severity was defined by a change of at least 5 points on the IRLS scale. During 36 months follow-up minimal improvement of RLS severity between assessments was observed. Men consistently reported higher severity scores. RLS severity increased with age reaching a plateau in the age group 45–54 years. During 3 years 60.2% of the participants had no relevant (±5 points) change in RLS severity. RLS worsening was significantly related to an increase in depressive symptoms and a decrease in sleep quality and quality of life. The short-term variation showed distinctive circadian patterns with rhythm magnitudes strongly related to RLS severity. The majority of participants had a stable course of severe RLS over three years. An increase in RLS severity was accompanied by a small to moderate negative, a decrease by a small positive influence on quality of life, depressive symptoms and sleep quality.

We report results from three independently conducted studies on the prevalence of cancer in restless legs syndrome (RLS) cases and non RLS cases. Already in 1955 Ekbom observed RLS in patients with subsequently detected cancer. Since then only three case reports and one article assessed the relationship between RLS and cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. The observed proportion of RLS in these cancer patients (18.3%) was about twice as high as in general population studies. Two of our studies were general population based studies (Dortmund Health Study (DHS); Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP)) and one was performed among members of the German and Swiss RLS patient organizations (Course of Restless Legs Syndrome-Study (COR-S)). Additionally we used data from the population based, regional cancer registry of the Muenster district for comparisons. Our data show that in all three studies the prevalence of cancer was higher in RLS cases than in non cases for both genders. In two of the studies the increased risk was in part explained by age. The data of the COR-Study revealed a statistically significant higher risk for cancer in RLS subjects compared to the population based data of the regional cancer registry of Muenster. Our results suggest a higher proportion of cancer among RLS cases compared to individuals without RLS. Given an RLS prevalence of about 5 to 10 percent in the general population, a need to rule out cancer in patients with a new onset of RLS, especially among the elderly patients is important.