SLEEP SECRETS

HOW scientists discovered the secrets of our sleep. This week: restless legs

BEING kept awake by restless legs was first described in 1684 by the king’s doctor, Thomas Willis, in his book The London Practice of Physick.

He wrote: ‘Some, when being abed they betake themselves to sleep, presently in the arms and legs leapings and contractions of the tendons and so great a restlessness ensue that the diseased are no more able to sleep than if they were in a place of greatest torture.’

But it was Swedish neurologist Dr Karl-Axel Ekbom who first reported it as a medical syndrome in 1944. Some researchers now link it to a lack of the brain chemical dopamine, which helps control physical movement. It’s also been linked to low iron levels.