Increased knee-joint loading has been linked to the progression of knee osteoarthritis (OA), and wearing shoes increases this joint stress, according to a study in the May 15 issue of Arthritis Care & Research. Australian researchers, studying 40 patients with medial knee OA who walked barefoot vs. wearing shoes, found that shoes increased knee-joint loading by 7.4 percent, and predicted that wearing shoes can nearly triple the risk of knee OA progression. Those findings prompted the researchers to embark on a 160-patient trial for a study of various shoe designs that will compare pain and joint loading. The finding that walking barefoot was less stressful on arthritic knees than walking in shoes was "a surprise for everyone, indicating that we havent looked at shoes carefully enough," the researchers said.
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