Sample disorders

Alzheimer's disease

A German woman in her early 50's known as "Auguste D." was Dr. Alzheimer's first clinical case of the disease around 1901, and she presented with much general nervousness and a poor weight—symptoms that are also related to footwear use. This landmark influential case occurred only several decades after modern shoes started becoming wildly popular in America and Europe. The first Alzheimer's patient was born on May 16, 1850, during the last year that shoes were made completely by hand.

Hypertension

Most adults already know the rejuvenating action of kicking off their heavy shoes at the end of a long day. So why do they put them on again the very next morning?

Cardiovascular disease

The use of shoes and socks, however, places unnatural mechanical strain on the "upper" heart. With footwear, the toes become inactive, important blood vessels or muscles are compressed, and blood flow stagnates in the feet and legs. Tight socks constrict blood flow in the lower heart while constant lifting of excess shoe weight stresses the upper heart, but eventually, poor posture from footwear influences even the internal environment in which the organs function.

Indeed, resting on top of the diaphragm, the upper heart's position is changed and stressed from the flattened chest and drooping ribs evident in faulty body mechanics. The diaphragm itself is important for assisting in return blood flow to the upper heart from the lower one. Internal mechanical disturbances chronically injure tissues, organs, and muscles of the body, among them the cardiac muscle itself, thus producing chest pain, rhythm disturbances, cardiac enlargement, congestive heart failure, heart attacks, or worse.

The vast network of blood vessels in the circulatory system, particularly those servicing the heart and brain, is also susceptible to chronic postural stress because, as Dr. Goldthwait explains, "Due to circulating stimulants and hormones, changes in the elasticity and muscular tone of the blood vessels is possible, and that, in Nature's attempt at repair, calcium and cholesterol are laid down in the arterial walls."

Cancer

Breast

The occurrence of breast cancer in males is exceptionally lower than in females, who have significantly more weight to support on the front of their skeleton. The problem seems to be biomechanical, in supporting the tissue naturally, but shoes make such a balancing act impossible. Actually, the earliest written record of any human cancer refers to a tumor of the breast, and it dates back several thousand years to ancient Egypt where much of our present-day diets, drugs, toxins, chemicals, radiation, and pollution were absent. Shoes, however, have existed for at least 10,000 years and were certainly worn during the time of that first reference to breast cancer.

Prostate

Is the idea that shoes cause disease really more radical than a prostatectomy? The word itself became popularly used in our language during the late 1800's, nearly a few decades after the modern shoe began mass production in America and Europe. Perhaps a person can avoid removing organs and glands by simply removing their shoes more often during the day? In Japan, for example, the custom exists of leaving modern shoes at the doorway upon entering the home or some restaurants and offices, replacing them with slippers, socks, or just bare feet. The major cancers occur less often in Japan than in the United States, a country that actually requires the opposite practice, ironically even in hospitals and doctor offices. Indeed, the common American sign, "no shoes, no service", may someday be modified to instead reflect, "no disease."

Colorectal

Lung

Other cancers

Obesity and weight problems

America—Land of the Shod

On the other side of the scale, and ocean, obesity is rare in Japan and other countries where footwear is used sparingly. The Japanese practice the custom of removing modern shoes when in the home or at some restaurants and offices, replacing them with slippers, stockings, or bare feet. Beginning right at birth, and continuing all the way through old age, their feet generally spend more time outside of shoes developing natural movement, strength, and agility. Their postures are straighter and more balanced, resulting in reduced stress and strain on their bodies.

Childhood beginnings

Adult accumulations

Chunkier soles ...and thighs

The age of excess

Bigger feet but smaller sizes

Overactivity with undersized feet

The modern sneaker

Many modern sneakers are available only in full sizes and reduced widths, making the odds of "proper fit" much lower. Their high traction soles result in a forward sliding of the foot inside the shoe causing toe trauma and heat buildup. Most of the time they are snugly laced against a thick padded tongue, eliminating good ventilation for the foot, while restricting circulation in blood vessels. Modern sneakers are made using more chemicals and synthetic materials, resulting in a toxic environment for the feet and body. They are less flexible than conventional shoes; a toddler sneaker refuses to bend anywhere along the sole, let alone the correct ball flex line. The thick or hard sole promotes unusually long wear, thus increasing the odds that the shoe has been outgrown during the formative years. A thick sole certainly annihilates any sensory contact with any wearer's environment.

In accommodating those inflexible soles, modern sneakers have a greater toe spring, the upslant of the shoe's toe tip, which places the toes in a permanently hyperextended position. The elevated heel at the opposite end of the shoe produces shortened calf muscles and, hence, reduced propulsion. Overall, modern sneakers weigh more than conventional shoes, because they are now ornamented or medicated with "pronation control." This added weight increases foot lift load, which can make a difference of thousands of pounds daily, imposing unnatural energy drain on the entire body. (26)

Significant source of stress

Now, how could there be any remaining doubt that a lifetime of constantly strained activity with weak and inflexible feet would increase the body's desire for calories unnaturally? What incentive exists for kids to walk when every step, in any kind of shoe, is labored, rather than free, effortless, easy, and enjoyable? Could the chronic physical and postural stress since birth of severely deforming footwear be readily interfering with the body's metabolism and processes, or with hormonal regulation by internal glands and organs, such as the thyroid and pancreas, or with the assimilation or digestion of food or nutrients? (30)

Standing on the problem

Indeed, it matters not what we put into the mouth, but rather, what we put onto the feet. Shoes and socks are the fundamental cause of obesity and weight problems.

Sneak peek at the future

Depression and chronic fatigue

Anti-depressants and thus depression became increasingly prevalent during the 1980's and 1990's, especially amongst children. It appears that the decades' footwear changes, typified by the modern sneaker, had a profound impact on the human body, particularly during its formative years.

Arthritis and pain

Popping, clicking, snapping, or cracking in the major joints of the body seems to be an indication of unbalanced muscle tension induced by an unnatural gait in shoes. Common sites for such noises include the shoulders, neck, back, hips, knees, ankles, and especially the foot's big toe joint, assuming that it can still move after decades of inactivity from inflexible shoes. When bones are allowed to balance effortlessly over one another, joints are exercised through a full range of motion and become flexible, strong, and healthy, but shoes force the bones out of alignment, where the muscles are required to take up the slack and work harder than they normally would. Such stiff and chronically fatigued muscles become susceptible to any additional trauma or stressful demand, no matter how minor or insignificant it may seem. Even a sneeze is sufficient to land some shoe-wearers in bed or on the floor with excruciating pain for weeks at a time.

Osteoarthritis affects many who have worn shoes, and it commonly occurs in the knees and hips—joints that suffer greatly from unnatural twisting and circulatory disturbances. Wearing shoes even disrupts circulation to the fingers, because rounded shoulders trap important blood vessels of the arm, slowly starving the extremities and leading to nodes, numbness, tingling, cold or inactive fingers, and perhaps carpal tunnel syndrome. Fibromyalgia syndrome is another that inflicts deep pain upon many Americans, especially women, for no apparent reason. Indeed, the lifelong habit of foot deformation is an important clinical feature in all of these sufferers of pain.

Addictions

For example, alcohol consumption has been popular for thousands of years, but therapies, such as AA, to address abuses and addictions in the masses were not needed or even conceived in the United States until the early 1900's, after the exploding popularity of shoes in the late 1800's. Psychoanalysis was also originated and developed about a century ago to address other problems thought to be in the mind—rather than on the feet. One of its pioneers, Sigmund Freud was himself a tobacco addict, hopelessly unable to control or give up his own addiction. (14) He was among the first who were born directly into the era of the modern manufactured shoe, so is it any wonder that psychotherapy was conceived during his lifetime?

Multiple sclerosis and autoimmune diseases

Multiple sclerosis is but one example of a group of conditions known as autoimmune diseases—diseases that result when the immune system of a healthy person, especially women, mistakenly attacks the body's own tissues. 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. The habitual use of modern shoes since birth may thus be the predisposing condition for autoimmune diseases in humans, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, psoriasis, systemic lupus erythematosus, immune-mediated diabetes mellitus (type-1 diabetes), and numerous others.

Lupus itself is known as "a woman's disease", afflicting females—after puberty—significantly more often than males, but for no precisely identified reason. Type-1 diabetes, which occurs during the formative childhood years, also seems to correlate with footwear use; the "juvenile" form of diabetes apparently develops more often during the winter than in the summer, and it has a greater prevalence in colder climates.

Diabetes

The alarming increase in type-2 diabetes in the United States during the 1980's and 1990's seemed to mimic the growth and popularity of the modern sneaker during the exact same time. The thriving cases of diabetes in Asia, however, are generally attributed to American fast food instead of American sneakers. Like many degenerative diseases, diabetes appears to be a fundamentally mechanical condition that is preventable by simply raising children to be barefoot.

Asthma and allergies

Asthma and allergies statistically skyrocketed during the sneaker generations. Food allergies among children, and even some adults, also became increasingly prevalent during the 1980's and 1990's, and immunologists believe that some significant change in the environment disrupted the naturally healthy immune systems of many. In the United States, it is becoming practically impossible to find a child, or adult, who does not wear modern sneakers.

Gastrointestinal

Kidney problems

Sitting atop the kidneys, the adrenal glands must surely be affected by shoes, thus disturbing the important production and regulation of hormones throughout the entire body.

Liver problems

Prostate problems

Men are much more likely than women to get bladder cancer, but maybe just slightly more susceptible to colorectal cancer. Perhaps both of these discrepancies can be explained by the fact that only men have a prostate gland? Because it surrounds the urethra in men, a prostate enlarged from poor posture would interfere primarily with complete drainage of the bladder, and secondarily with complete emptying of the bowels. With the many carcinogens and germs handled in both the bladder and colon, their long-continued partial voiding increases the likelihood of malignancy. "Benign" is thus a misnomer in labeling prostatic hypertrophy.

Uterine problems

"Those were the years when women reluctantly talked about their reproductive organs. As a foot doctor, these subjects were surely outside of my podiatry practice. On reflection, I think these women probably divined that there was a connection between their foot troubles and their female complaints. I heard constantly of hysterectomies, "D and C's", menstrual difficulties, spontaneous abortions, frigidity, tipped uteruses and other operations they were contemplating having. To present day doctors who favor hysterectomies as a way to cure uterine problems, it would seem that every woman in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in the 1930's was a candidate for a hysterectomy."

"A typical case I encountered is that of a foot sufferer, a woman of child-bearing age, whose feet were badly distorted as a child from wearing short shoes. Because of menstrual difficulties and pain in her lower back, she consented to successive surgeries for uterine repairs, then removal of the uterus. That ended her menstrual difficulties, but the back pains persisted. Eventually we relieved the back pains through foot therapeutics and stress-less walking. The woman was furious at having endured what she thought was useless uterine surgery. Would this woman's problems with her uterus have been prevented, if her feet originally had not been distorted?" (8)

Dr. Goldthwait agrees, "In the female pelvis, the malpositions of the uterus and the weakened pelvic floor so common after childbirth may become the cause of symptoms when associated with body mechanics, when they by themselves would not. The symptoms of dysmenorrhea (menstrual cramps), menorrhagia (heavy periods), and irregular menstruation, so common in young girls, have often disappeared entirely when the mechanics of the body was improved sufficiently to remove the pressure from above." (30)

Menopause

Bacterial and viral infections

Some people who have habitually worn shoes and socks since birth are plagued throughout life with bacterial and viral infections, as poor posture generally reduces immunity to diseases that have now become commonplace and accepted as "normal." Respiratory infections are evident amongst all ages, but can be especially persistent in the habitual shod. A flattened chest, drooping ribs, and sagging diaphragm, as seen in many elderly, affects the ability to breathe fully, and leaves the pulmonary system prone to infection, influenza, or pneumonia.

Unnatural muscular tension also brings serious changes to the sinus cavities, thus provoking and encouraging infection. Bladder and urinary tract infections (UTI) are especially common amongst shoe-wearing people, affecting even those in their youth. In both men and women, crowding of the pelvic organs leads to their dysfunction, leaving everything susceptible to yeast, viral, and bacterial infection. Frequent infections seem to plague some later in life, as a lifetime of postural changes accumulate.

Mental health and aging

Even violent or aggressive behavior could be related to the practice of foot deformation since birth. Shoes cause the wearer to lose touch with reality—literally—by reducing sensory contact with their environment. Going barefoot allows a person to get a grip on reality by permitting the toes their natural function of grasping the ground.

General anxiety, nervousness, many neuroses, addictions, emotional crises, and psychological and psychiatric problems seemed to arise in the American and European populations in the decades following the modern manufactured shoe of the 1850's. Yet, a century later, psychology and psychiatry still consider the problem to be in the mind, rather than on the feet.

Varicose veins and restless limbs

Sprains, strains, fractures, and falls

There are some who claim we need to wear shoes for all of the flat surfaces in our cities, but they have gotten it completely backwards. Apparently, we need flat surfaces for all of the shoes that are worn in the city. Imagine the number of ankle problems alone that would arise from walking habitually in shoes on unpredictable surfaces. It seems that hard, flat surfaces are actually healthier for shoe-wearers, so should they not be for non-shoe-wearers as well? After all, hard, flat surfaces provide the most predictable walking surface imaginable for the human body. Indeed, did the paving of surfaces with asphalt or concrete, which began in the United States during the late 1800's, contribute to increased life expectancies in the twentieth century? And did the earlier paving of Paris, during the mid 1800's, contribute to the even greater life expectancies enjoyed by France in the twentieth century?

Osteoporosis and bone fractures

Consider the effect from standing or walking in a shoe with an elevated heel, for example. Women typically wear higher heels than men, but even a so-called "sensible" or "low" heel of one-inch height—found in many modern sneakers and boots—influences the growth and health of bones. Standing in bare feet distributes the weight appropriately to the ball and heel of the foot, but try raising your body onto the ball, simulating the position of that "low" one-inch heel. More weight is placed on the front of the foot and less upon the rear. Higher heeled shoes mechanically place less weight on the rearfoot, producing decreased density in its thick and chunky bones. Could the elevated heel in modern shoes thus explain the popularity of osteoporosis screening, which is done with a density scan at the heel bone?

Many vertebral compression fractures (VCF) occur in the modern elderly for no apparent reason—despite nutritional diets. The vertebral bones and their intervertebral discs have adapted in a habitual shoe-wearer to decades of faulty body alignment, producing the exaggerated curves of the spine that are prominent. Dr. Goldthwait points out, "The intervertebral disks are the most efficient shock absorbers, but when the weight rests on them at bad mechanical angles, their efficiency is proportionately lessened and their work must be done by other parts of the body, thus causing unnecessary strain and fatigue." (30) With less cushioning and density, the misaligned vertebrae can no longer cope with mechanical stress and hence they collapse from the shocks provided by walking or driving. Along with hip fractures, vertebral compression fractures are extremely costly, debilitating, and painful experiences that may be preventable by going barefoot, resorting to soft-soled moccasins when necessary.

Temporomandibular disorders and dental

Toothbrushes are cheap, easy to use, and widely available in the United States. So why are treatments for cavities, root canals, gum disease, and associated surgeries in such high demand? Diet and hygiene continue to take the popular blame, but can shoes take a bigger bite out of our health?

Ear, nose, and throat problems

Disorders and diseases of the eye

The eye is thus directly subject to unnatural postural strain with imbalanced feet. After walking around in shoes for several years—and it does not take very long at all—the multiple, tiny muscles of a person's eyes have been subjected to tremendous postural stress. It leaves little wonder that natural vision becomes horribly disturbed with the resulting myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, presbyopia, strabismus, amblyopia, or other degenerate conditions.

Although extremely rare for older ages, not everyone wears eyeglasses. Almost everyone, however, has experienced an eye twitch at some time or another—an acutely visible indication that stress plays a measurable role in our lives. Chronic postural strain can bring mechanical and circulatory disturbances to the eye with tissue starvation, congestion, malnutrition, or more. Faulty body mechanics thus readily produces dry eyes, but eventually, it influences internal diseases such as cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, retinal detachment, peripheral vision loss, presbyopia, and others.

Sleeping disorders

Both sleep apnea and snoring are less common in Japan, where modern shoes are used less often, but modern mattresses are also used less often in Japan than in the United States, at exactly the time when snoring is apparent. Indeed, sleep apnea and snoring affect men in the United States more often than women. With the heavier build of the two genders, men will experience more sag or sinking into the same modern mattress and, hence, an increased distortion of the internal airways during sleep.

The prevalence of sleep apnea increased considerably alongside obesity during the last few decades, as both sneakers and pillow top or plush mattresses became popular in America. The heaviest part of the body is the torso, and its most flexible part is between the hips and the ribcage. When laying on a thick plush surface that readily gives, this flexible area of the torso sags, especially in apple-shaped people. The sagging creates unbalanced muscle tension in the lower part of the spine and, consequently, in its other most-vulnerable part—the neck. A softer, thicker mattress thus produces more sag and snoring than a firmer, thinner one, like the type preferred in Japan, where straighter postures are evident.

Foot problems

Sexual disturbances and incapacities

In his famous book about the sex life of the foot and shoe, podiatrist Dr. William Rossi explains that the foot is an erotic organ and the shoe is its sexual covering, and that wearing shoes causes changes to the feet and necessarily influences sexual performance. (4) He reports that some women's feet have lost sensation—deadened by too much time in fashionable shoes—resulting in a low libido, while excessively tight shoes actually stimulate sexual activity in others. Dr. Rossi points out that some men are instantly aroused only upon hearing a woman complain of her tight shoes, indicating that footwear has a remote, potent effect as well. (4)

Actually, the sexual sport of footsie is played with the shoes off, and there is good reason for it. As everyone already instinctively knows, footsie is "an old and universal gesture between male and female of rubbing their feet and/or legs together for sexual signaling and mutual exchange of sensual contact", usually concealed from view such as beneath a table. The foot is a highly sensory organ, home to some of the most densely packed nerve endings in the entire body, making it an instinctual and natural element in experiencing the erotic sensations of touch and pressure. Dr. Rossi describes the scene of a Caribbean beach from years ago: "Boy and girl lay on the sand, the soles of the feet and toes pressing in touch-grasp movements. Older couples soon adopted the 'game' until the beach was strewn with 'sole mates' undulating with the pleasure of their newfound sensation." (4)

Infertility

"Then almost miraculously, she began feeling an intense desire for sex. She couldn't understand this new excitement and passion. Her husband, of course, was delighted. And soon she learned that she was pregnant. She explained to her gynecologist, 'It was the strangest feeling. When I started walking again after all those months, it was a new sensation. It seemed that for the first time I was actually feeling the ground under my feet. I had never felt that before, as though the soles of my feet were without any feeling at all. Now I suddenly felt alive, as though I had just discovered a whole new sense of touch. And it seemed to go through my whole body like electricity—a kind of, well, sexual electricity.'" (4)

Dr. Rossi explains, "During all those years of constantly wearing high heels, the soles of her feet had developed very thick calluses. Also, the toes had become curled back so that there was no toe-grip touch in her step. Between the calluses and the curled toes the sensory powers of the soles and toes had been destroyed. She had 'lost touch' with the physical realities of earth contact. During her many months of immobilization the calluses had disappeared. Her soles were sensitively soft and natural again. Also, the flat-heeled shoes permitted her toes to stretch out and resume ground contact. She had fully regained the ground contact that gave her the new touch sensation, which, as she explained, spread through her like 'sexual electricity.' She had reawakened those 'sexual nerves' in her soles and toes." (4)

Pregnancies

Preterm low-birth-weight babies have been statistically associated with advanced gum disease of the mother. Since the jaw is fundamentally a mechanical structure that is susceptible to shoes, could it be that mechanical crowding of the pelvic organs becomes a stressful event for the growing baby inside of the womb, prompting its early entry into the world?

Parkinson's disease

Shoes fit the encyclopedia's description perfectly, but most people consider environmental "toxins" to be chemicals or pollution, and they would never suspect such everyday, familiar, mechanical objects—especially those so close to their bodies.

Neuromuscular diseases

It seems that a degenerative disease such as DMD, with a rare survival past the teenage years, would have an impossible time propagating in Nature, indicating that there is indeed something unnatural about the growing child's environment that is triggering the condition.

Common male pattern baldness

Shoes are a significant source of stress for the human body, and their constant use chronically affects hormone production, regulation, and balance. A lifetime of cumulative chronic stress from footwear increases the baldness rates for older males. The baldness rates in Asia are believed to be much lower than those in Americans, perhaps as low as one-fourth in early age groups, but rising to one-third later in life. These rates now appear to be changing, and common baldness rates in Asia may eventually approach those of the United States. As always, diet gets all the credit, but if the shoe fits, then why not wear it? :-)