4th annual: Are shoes the cause of Alzheimer's disease?

Hi everyone,

The purpose of this yearly post is to stimulate interest and discussion about the biomechanical effects of shoes on "age-related" degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease. Chiropodist Dr. Simon J. Wikler pioneered efforts to understand the influences of shoes in the 1950's, but his work was neglected during the subsequent drug- and diet-based approaches to medicine. However, the prolific footwear historian and podiatrist Dr. William A. Rossi clearly demonstrated throughout his publications that shoes influence the posture of the human body. Therefore, using the posture-based approaches to medicine of the distinguished orthopedist Dr. Joel E. Goldthwait, I have expanded Dr. Wikler's insightful work to include a variety of illnesses and conditions whose causes remain unknown.

Alzheimer's disease is just one example of diseases that are related to the use of footwear, especially since it affects women disproportionately more than men. Women's footwear is more physically deforming to the feet because of higher heels, pointier toes, and smaller sizes, but any shoe might have a more deforming effect on the lighter build of a woman's body. Even the first clinical case, presenting to Dr. Alois Alzheimer in 1901, was a woman called "Auguste D." who was born on May 16, 1850, during the last year that shoes were made completely by hand. The second clinical case of what became known as Alzheimer's disease was a man, "Johann F." born about a year later on March 8, 1853. Auguste and Johann were among the first children growing up in the manufactured shoe era following Issac Singer's 1851 sewing machine, which made modern shoes widely available for the first time in the history of mankind.

You may find my thesis regarding shoes and disease on the Internet at: http://www.shoebusters.com
Thank you very much for considering my novel approach.

James Semmel
Albuquerque, New Mexico

 

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Although there can be health effects from ill-fitting or poorly designed shoes, or even using the wrong shoes for the purpose, on the whole shoes prevent a wide variety of problems and there value has been proven time and time again. Lack of shoes causes calluses which can crack, admitting harmful parasites and bacteria. They protect from broken glass. They protect from impact injuries, especially when running. An army with no boots cannot function effectively, like during hitler's campaign against Russia.

Alzheimers has to do with the brain, why would the feet be involved at all? You have not proven any connection. There might be a correlation between shoe use and health, but perhaps there is also a correlation between automobile or television use and health. You can't just make claims with no direct evidence.

 

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Did you know that there are "touch-points" and points of acupuncture on the feet which almost immediately relieve migraines and other headaches?

Baron Max

 

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You have a point, but is there a connection between these nerves and Alzheimers disease? It would seem that protecting your feet would prevent any adverse effects on the body.

 

Well, damn, Spider, I don't know about how some things can .....ooops, forgot what I was going to say 'cause my feet hurt from bein' pinched in too-tight cowboy boots!

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Baron .....ahh, whatshisname?!

 

spidergoat,

The development of our specialized brain depended upon the development of our specialized foot. Consider that the other primates are lacking a big toe that points ahead for propulsion. The feet are inherently involved in organic function, especially that of the brain.

james

 

Baron Max,

Indeed, the foot is richly covered with over a thousand nerve endings per square inch, and no other like-sized part of the body comes even close to this kind of tactile sensory ability. It would seem that such unique characteristic has special properties.

james

 

spidergoat,

I can assure you that no researcher is even considering it. After spending 100 years futilely searching for a cause, nobody wants to think that all this time they've just been standing on the problem.

james

 

LOL!

 

I would be interested in a study of a shoe/alzheimer's link - vibrations to the arch of the foot can quickly increase balance in elderly patients, and accupressure/puncture seems to suggest that a link could exist.

I've always wondered if the added material (padding/heel) in the back of shoes, which result in a downward slant from heel to toe, might cause problems.


The linked website offers very tenuous links between shoes and physical ailments, however.

 

river-wind,

A grossly crippled foot is no tenuous link with human disease.

james

 

This one is going to be interesting: on one side the reductionist biology of the military-medical complex; on the other side an (at least) 5,000 year old traditional practice of medicine.
Lets get something straight from the outset...Alzheimers is big bucks...

 

Military medical complex? I never heard of this term.

 

Not that I'm against the many valuable uses of shoes, but this one has an easy remedy. It might feel weird at first because your muscles arent used to it, but if you raise the backs of your feet and touch the ground just with the front part and the toes, then your feet/ankles act as natural shock absorbers, better than any shoe.

I've always disliked shoes, I usually walk/run around without them. Or with just sandals. But I do use shoes when I go into most stores, or walk around the city (damn people always throwing their trash on the ground).

I don't think there is any significant connection between wearing shoes and getting alzheimer's. Then again, I don't know much about either.

 

You don't want to cross the Footwear/Industrial Complex, man!

 

http://www.ogka.at/aerzte/artikel/oetziLancet.htm

 

Then now's your chance. Do some real research. I dare you.

 

What? And sit in a stuffy cubicle all day wearing shoes like the rest of them? Nah.

james

 

Most scientists use subjects rather than study on themselves.