For Immediate Release
Contact: Abena Foreman-Trice
abena@virginia.edu
(434) 243-2734

THEY MAY NOT BE STILETTOS, BUT EVEN MODERATELY HIGH- HEELED WOMEN’S SHOES CAN INCREASE RISK FOR KNEE ARTHRITIS 

Women who long ago threw out their four-inch spiked heels in favor of more sensible shoes probably thought they were doing themselves a favor. That is only part of the story, according to a new University of Virginia Health System study. Continuing on a path that began with her 1998 groundbreaking research on high-heeled shoes, Dr. D. Casey Kerrigan, lead researcher, professor, and chairperson of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the UVa Health System, found that even wide-based, orthopedic-type shoes with heels of an inch and a half in height induce biomechanical changes that could lead to the development and progression of knee osteoarthritis. The results will appear in the May edition of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Kerrigan and her research team found in 1998 and 2001 studies that both stiletto and wide-base, high-heeled shoes increase knee joint torques while walking, resulting in an increase in pressure through the knee compared to barefoot walking. In the current study, 40 women, half of them young (average age of 26) and half of them elderly average age of 75), were tested while walking with and without custom-made, heeled shoes on a sophisticated motion analysis laboratory walkway embedded with force-sensing plates.

The results showed increases in the relevant knee torques and they varied from 9% to 19% compared to wearing no heel, demonstrating that even moderately high heels can increase pressure on the knee. The younger women experienced the highest statistical torque increase.

“These rigorously derived conclusions are supportive of our previous efforts,” says Kerrigan. “They continue to show the potentially damaging impact of traditional footwear on long-term health and quality of life.”

Kerrigan noted that the incidence of knee osteoarthritis in women is twice as high as in men and that the condition causes more disability with respect to mobility than any other singular disease in the elderly—both women and men. Her next step in this process, is to determine what footwear might be best for staving off knee osteoarthritis.

“These results from even non-aesthetic types of footwear will encourage us to continue pursuing a more-healthy solution to this vexing problem that we face as we age,” Kerrigan said.

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May 4, 2005