Restless legs syndrome also known as Willis-Ekbom disease is a common neurological sensorimotor disorder that causes an overwhelming, irresistible urge to move the legs. The following meta-analysis of the observational studies provide strong evidence that restless legs syndrome has higher risk among individuals with a migraine than among controls.

Current investigations have shown a relationship among a migraine and restless legs syndrome (RLS), although the prevalence of RLS amongst people with migraine varies considerably across the investigations. The study aimed to estimate present evidence to determine RLS predominance amidst subjects with migraine and non-migraine controls.

The Embase, SinoMed, Web of Science, Wanfang, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and PubMed databases were examined for case-control and observational and studies of RLS prevalence amongst migraineurs. Stata 12.0 software was used to conduct a meta-analysis of the eligible studies.

The prevalence of RLS in migraine was observed to be 19% with the lower incidence rate in Asia and outside Asia (16 and 21%, respectively). The migraineurs with aura showed 18.8% of  RLS prevalence and migraineurs without aura showed 18.5% of  RLS prevalence. Moreover, migraineurs exhibited higher pooled RLS prevalence in a case-control study as compared to non-migraine controls. 

The meta-analysis presents the first positive pooled assessment of RLS prevalence amongst people with migraine, and it gives strong evidence that RLS risk is greater among migraineurs as compared to controls.