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Association between restless legs syndrome and hypertension: a meta-analysis of nine population-based studies

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Abstract

Previous population-based studies evaluating the association between restless legs syndrome (RLS) and cardiovascular risk factors have showed inconsistent results, especially for the relationship between RLS and hypertension. We, therefore, aimed to meta-analyze to assess the association between RLS and hypertension. PubMed and Embase databases were systematically searched to identify eligible studies. Nine population-based cross-sectional studies were selected for inclusion, involving 102,408 individuals. Overall, the prevalence of hypertension in RLS subjects was higher than those without RLS (OR = 1.36, 95% CI, 1.18–1.57, P = 0.043). Our findings indicate that RLS is associated with increased blood pressure. More large-scale and prospective studies are warranted to further clarify the relationship and its potential mechanism.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Prof. Jianglong Tu for his advice about performing the statistical analysis and revision after reviewing the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. Yaoyao Shen and Hailing Liu contributed equally to this work and should be considered as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, The Affiliated Hospital of Jiujiang University, No. 57, Xunyang East Road, Xunyang District, Jiujiang, 332000, China

    Yaoyao Shen, Tingmin Dai, Yanqin Guan & Hongbing Nie

  2. Department of Hematology, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Xi’an Jiaotong University, The West Five Road, No. 157, Xi’an, Shanxi Province, 710004, China

    Hailing Liu

  3. Department of Neurology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, No. 1 Mingde Rode, Donghu District, Nanchang, 330006, China

    Jianglong Tu

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  1. Yaoyao Shen
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Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: HN, YS, HL, and JT. Performed the experiments: HN, YS, HL, YG, and TD. Analyzed the data: YS, HL, YG, and TD. Wrote the paper: NH, YS, HL, YG, and TD. Screened titles and abstracts of articles: YS and HL. Data extraction: YS, HL, and NH.

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Correspondence to Hongbing Nie.

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Shen, Y., Liu, H., Dai, T. et al. Association between restless legs syndrome and hypertension: a meta-analysis of nine population-based studies. Neurol Sci 39, 235–242 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-017-3182-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-017-3182-4

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