Welcome to the Podiatry Arena forums, for communication between foot health professionals about podiatry and related topics.
You are currently viewing our podiatry forum as a guest which gives you limited access to view all podiatry discussions and access our other features. By joining our free global community of Podiatrists and other interested foot health care professionals you will have access to post podiatry topics (answer and ask questions), communicate privately with other members (PM), upload content, view attachments, receive a weekly email update of new discussions, earn CPD points and access many other special features. Registered users do not get displayed the advertisments in posted messages. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our global Podiatry community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
The Pretoria News is reporting: Naked foot is the 'shoe' that fits best, study finds
Quote:
If you want to put your best foot forward, then forget about wearing shoes.
In the the words of Professor Lee Berger, who recently conducted a study on the health of human feet: "Prehistoric humans had it right - bare is best - at least when it comes to feet."
Researchers at Wits University yesterday announced the results of a study on the health of human feet, to be published in next month's issue of the prestigious journal, The Foot.
The study demonstrates that people had healthier feet before the invention of shoes.
The study - conducted by Wits academics Dr Bernhard Zipfel, a podiatrist and curator of fossil collections, and Berger, of the Institute for Human Evolution and the Bernard Institute in the School of GeoSciences - reveals that early human populations who didn't wear shoes had healthier feet with fewer pathologies than modern groups of humans who wear shoes.
The research was conducted on more than 180 modern humans from three different population groups (Sotho, Zulu and European) and on skeletons of humans more than 2 000 years old.
The study challenges the widely held belief that habitually wearing shoes is good for your feet and suggests that going barefoot results in fewer bony pathologies, particularly in the mid-foot region.
The study also highlights the damage high heels do to women's feet.
"In almost every case, women show a higher frequency of fore-foot pathologies, bony damage to the foot.
"This is almost certainly due to the constraining nature of fashionable female footwear and the wearing of high heels in particular," said Berger.
The one exception to this is in Zulu men. The study shows that they have more foot pathologies than Zulu women.
Background
Pathologies of the metatarsal bones in contemporary humans are common yet it remains unclear from an evolutionary perspective to what extent, if any, footwear and other environmental factors such as modern substrates have contributed to the emergence of common metatarsal pathological changes.
Objectives
To investigate the frequency of metatarsal bone pathologies in contemporary and habitually unshod pre-historic people in order to ascertain whether these frequencies are affected by variation in habitual behaviour, the wearing of footwear and/or exposure to modern substrates.
Method
The metatarsal elements from four human groups were examined for pathological variation. Three of these skeletal samples were from recent rural and urban shod populations (Sotho, Zulu and European) and one from habitually unshod pre-pastoral Holocene people who practiced a subsistence hunter gatherer lifestyle.
Results
The trends in the dominance of pathological lesions between the five metatarsal bones were broadly similar in all four samples. In all groups the first metatarsal presented with the greatest number of pathological lesions; more specifically, at the first metatarsal head. The Sotho and European groups presented with notably greater frequencies of pathological changes followed by the Zulu group and then the pre-pastoral.
Conclusions
The pathological lesions found in the metatarsals of the three recent human groups generally appeared to be more severe than those found in the pre-pastoral group. This result may support the hypothesis that pathological variation in the metatarsus was affected by habitual behaviour including the wearing of footwear and exposure to modern substrates.
The article partially quoted in the first message goes on to say:
Quote:
Zipfel said the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA), the largest organisation in the world representing podiatric medicine, justifiably instructed people with diabetes who had lost protective sensation not to go barefoot, but did not actively encourage outdoor barefoot walking for healthy people.
"This flies in the face of the increasing scientific evidence, including our study, that most of the commercially available footwear is not good for feet."
What am I missing? How can that be concluded from a study that looked at
Quote:
To investigate the frequency of metatarsal bone pathologies in contemporary and habitually unshod pre-historic people in order to ascertain whether these frequencies are affected by variation in habitual behaviour, the wearing of footwear and/or exposure to modern substrates.
I would share your skepticism at this particular extrapolation from an otherwise excellent paper. To the best of my knowledge shoes have a linage which dates to about 10k years ago. Some finds claim to pre date this so it is possible shoes were around longer. However the footwear if it did exist would be primitive foot/sole covers and have no resemblance to a stout modern shoe. Most authorities agree footwear in prehistory was worn for (ceremonial) decoration by the few rather than as functional clothing for all especially children and this is something implicit witin the author's suggestion. Under these circumstances it is unlikely shoes are involved at all. I might suggest a more plausible explanation may relate to the changing climate and type of terrain our early ancestors had to traverse.
What is not mentioned, and I rearley here anyone address this point, is that modern shoes act more like a splint than the primitive shoes mentioned. I doubt that the promitive shoes produces intrinsic foot muscle atrophy that the splint-like modern shoes are prone to do. This destroys the synergy of muscle, capsule, ligament, and extransic muscular control, resulting in plastic deformation of the other overloaded structures. I have a rehab protocol that has NEVR failed: get the cheapest, mosy flexible, unsuportive shoe you can buy, and walk on uneven surfaces in the woods. Three weeks of this invariably results in noticable atrophy of intrinsics. While I'm sure, I'll get argument out of this, please give me a reasonable retional.
Re: Barefoot is best. From my research into interventions for HAV I agree that this may be true of some tribal populations compared with modern (high-heeled) footwear and concrete terrain. However from a recent study of falls in the elderly population (e.g. Menz, Lord, Sherrinton et al) findings show that walking barefoot significantly increases the risk of falls and associated mobidity and mortality. Therefore arguably, barefoot is NOT best for this section of the population mostly due to potural instability.
Aren't Aussies the only white race to go barefoot regularly? Where did I read that? Here?
I also read a paper in the journal of gerentoloy?? that people in places where there are uneven streets, ie cobblestones enjoy better all around health, and use more calories just to walk. I know the old ladies in Portugal are much skinnier and healther than their UK and Aussie counterparts. Portugal is mostly cobbled. I lose weight whenever I go there and eat more, ditto Italy. Is it the uneven surface rather than the bare feet? Italian women walk on cobbles in the highest heels. I was at Mipel/Micam this year and some buyers spent 8 hours on hard flat floors in 5in/12cm heels!!! I really think I will pursue this as an interest when I start Pod at Newcastle next year. Please gimme a place in Melbourne!
Our feet were simply not designed to ambulate or stand on hard and flat surfaces for most of the time (a set of rollers work much better for this).
In the human foot we have a great mechanism for fast/slow ambulation and standing on a variety of different surfaces. Of course it's also adaptable for different loads, and will work equally well for small and large subjects.
Lord yes to you all. I am a researcher and have to go back into embryology to explain some of the neuromechanics that you NEVER see posted here. In the process, I often run intovery interesting articles from anthropologists studying our move to upright gait. I won't bore you with details, but this is the place to look for ansers concerning barefoot gait. I can't let this one slide, however....in parts of Africa, where there are no shoes, tribal men are known to run 50 miles carrying up to 50lbs of weight, never stop, and don't get injured. Not even FHL.
Barefoot is best
).
Linear Mode
