Does too much salt make RLS worse?

[Robin-Whittle]

My wife's RLS varies considerably, with sometimes a week or
two without symptoms. 9 of the last 10 days have been without
RLS. Perhaps this is due, in part, to her generally having really
good exercise and to her taking some vitamin E, fish oil and
evening primrose oil. These last two are good sources of
omega 3 and omega 6 essential fatty acids respectively.

http://www.firstpr.com.au/nutrition/efa.html

There are many variables affecting RLS and one of them may
be salt - sodium chloride or perhaps any food with lots of
sodium. The one night my wife had RLS was after eating an
unusually salty meal.

A message at:

http://www.sleepnet.com/rls3/messages/396.html

includes: "I have found that some of the major causes of it
are sitting too much and taking in too much salt."

Does anyone have experiences regarding salt?

(There is a "eBook" for $29.95 at restlesslegscure.com
which apparently states that reducing salt will cure RLS.
http://www.sleepnet.com/rls5/messages/350.html :
"I even ordered a book which assured a cure by limiting
to 500 mg salt in the diet, an impossible task."
I discuss this eBook and others by the same author in
a thread "restlesslegscure.com and similar sites".)

- Robin (rw@firstpr.com.au)

[ViewsAskew]

yeah, Robin, I'm familiar with the book. The same woman sells the same book to deal with three different medical conditions. It's pretty much a scam as far as I can tell. She used to sell this e-book for $10 BTW. Last year or the year before it was up to $19.95.

It could be that salt will help your wife. Diet does help some. But there is no scientific evidence at this point that salt helps in any way. Of course, doesn't mean that there won't be. I can only report my exerience. I follow and extraordarily low salt diet - I just don't like it much. I have not noticed any benefit. My BIL has type I diabetes and high-blood pressure (and RLS). He adds no salt at all and eats very little prepared food - he still has RLS anyway.

Ann