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I'm sorry if this is a repeat - but since I haven't seen it, I thought I'd share it. Parkinson's drug relieves restless-leg symptoms December 30, 1998 (NYT Syndicate) - People whose legs jump, itch, tingle or feel otherwise restless at night (and for some, throughout the day) may get relief from a medication used to treat Parkinson's disease, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In a small study of patients with moderate to severe restless legs syndrome (RLS), the drug pergolide (marketed as Permax by Athena Neurosciences) improved sleeping patterns and decreased the number of hours per day symptoms occurred. RLS is a sleep disorder in which a person experiences unpleasant sensations in the legs characterized as creeping, crawling, tingling, pulling or painful. These sensations usually occur in the calf but may be felt from the thigh to the ankle and may affect one or both legs. Moving, walking, rubbing or massaging the legs may bring temporary relief, but most sufferers lose sleep and many also suffer symptoms during the day. In many cases, the cause of RLS is unknown, but it can be related to an underlying medical condition such as iron deficiency, kidney failure or diabetes. RLS also may strike during pregnancy. Dr. Christopher J. Earley and his colleagues studied 16 patients with RLS who received either pergolide or placebo for 18 days. Patients were given a maximum number of pills and told they could take as few or as many as they felt they needed to achieve symptom relief. An all-night sleep study was performed two days before initiating treatment and during the last two days of the drug treatment. Compared with patients on placebo, those taking pergolide had greater improvement in their ability to sleep for prolonged periods and greater reductions in leg movements per hour. Prior to treatment, patients in the pergolide group had an average of 49 leg movements per hour, which decreased to 14.5 leg movements per hour with treatment. The rate of leg movements in the placebo group did not change. Patients on pergolide also experienced a decrease in the amount of time per day they suffered symptoms. Prior to treatment, the pergolide group reported symptoms lasting an average of seven hours a day, which decreased to less than two hours a day with treatment. By comparison, the placebo group experienced an increase in the number of hours each day that they had symptoms, the team reported. Pergolide is used to treat the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Other Parkinson's drugs, such as levodopa, have been used to treat restless legs syndrome with varying degrees of success. Levodopa cannot relieve symptoms throughout the night and loses its effectiveness after long-term use, while pergolide, which has properties similar to levodopa, appears to maintain its effectiveness at night. The long-term effectiveness of pergolide for treating restless legs syndrome is not yet known. According to James Kiley, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md., the study is important because treatment recommendations for restless legs syndrome are a "mixed bag" with no gold standard. "This is clearly a condition that has a neurological basis and it is not clear right now that the symptoms are consistent from patient-to-patient," he said. "What most physicians do is try a variety of things depending on the severity of symptoms, the person's age, etc." Added Kiley, "Up till now there haven't been many well-controlled, randomized trials and so this study does take a step in the right direction. Obviously, as the authors point out, the study is small and I don't think we know about the long-term effects of pergolide in treating RLS. We need to get information on long-term use and we also need to know if we can generalize the results of such a small trial." Neurology (1998;51:1599-1602) Copyright 1998 The New York Times Syndicate. All rights reserved. MORE NEWS Top News General Health Children's Health Senior Health Women's Health Men's Health Mental Health Nutrition Fitness Heart Health Cancer Allergy AIDS Johns Hopkins News and Commentaries Today in Health History This Week in Health Breaking news and updates on the most important and intriguing health stories, from Johns Hopkins, Reuters, UPI and other news services. WANT MORE? Get additional details on these and other topics in our Health Library. FACT By age 3-1/2, 75 percent of children no longer wet the bed. (American Institute for Preventive Medicine) TIP Caffeine in small to moderate doses does not have any harmful affect on children's behavior, according to a recent analysis by researchers at the Universities of Chicago and Colorado. In fact, parents participating in the study of caffeine and theophylline (commonly taken by children with asthma and a close chemical cousin of caffeine), reported their kids behaved better after taking small doses of the chemicals. Caffeine can be found in some soft drinks, cocoa, chocolate, coffee and tea.