An Analysis of Medication Rules of Chinese Medicine for Restless Legs Syndrome Based on Data Mining

Objective: Based on data mining, to explore the medication rules of Chinese medicine for the treatment of restless legs syndrome(RLS). Methods: The CNKI, WANFANG, and VIP were taken as data sources, and "restless legs syndrome, RLS" as the key words, and "Chinese medicine, Chinese materia medica, traditional Chinese medicine(TCM), traditional Chinese and Western medicine" as sub key words, the data was extracted from the journals and literature related to the treatment of RLS by TCM from the establishment of the database to 2020, and data mining techniques(frequency analysis, cluster analysis, association rules) were used to analyze the core drugs and drug pair(group) rules. Results: A total of 87 prescriptions met the requirements of this study, involving 142 Chinese herbal medicines. The top 5 Chinese herbal medicines with a higher frequency of use were Radix Paeoniae Alba, Radix Glycyrrhizae, Radix Angelicae Sinensis, Fructus Chaenomelis and Radix Astragali seu Hedysari. The four Qi(气) of the medicine were mainly warm and neutral, the five flavors were mainly sweet, bitter, and pungent. The main channels of the meridian were mainly the liver meridian, spleen meridian and heart meridian. The medication categories were mainly tonifying deficiency herbs, blood activating and removing blood stasis herbs, and eliminating wind and dampness herbs. The association rule analysis yielded 24 Chinese medicine combinations with high support, and the hierarchical cluster analysis yielded a total of 5 clusters. Conclusion: TCM treatment of RLS is based on tonifying deficiency herbs, especially to replenish Qi and blood throughout the course of the disease, supplemented by herbs for promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, and herbs for eliminating wind and dampness, as well as combined with herbs for reliving superficies and herbs for calming the liver to stop the wind.