How 3.5inch heels could prematurely age your joints
Wearing stilettos may not only be painful at the time. It could also raise the odds of arthritis in years to come, the Daily Mail reports.
A study found that walking in three-inch heels causes changes to gait similar to those seen in ageing and arthritic knees.
The finding could help explain why osteoarthritis is twice as common in women as men.
The Californian researchers said: ‘Because women and men are observed to have similar knee biomechanics during barefoot walking, gender differences in footwear, specifically high-heeled shoes, have been implicated as a possible factor for the higher incidence of osteoarthritis in women.’
The most common form of arthritis, osteoarthritis, caused by wear and tear of cartilage that helps our joints take the strain of bending, lifting, gripping and kneeling, affects more than eight million Britons.
Stiff, swollen and painful joints can make walking difficult, with stairs particularly tricky.
The Stanford University researchers studied the gait of 14 women as they walked in different types of shoes, from flat trainers to heels that left the women teetering just over three inches off the ground.
The higher the heels were, the more their gait, including the movement of their knees, changed.
Writing in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, the scientists said being overweight may make things even worse.
They added: ‘Many of the changes observed with increasing heel height and weight were similar to those seen with ageing and osteoarthritis progression.
‘This suggests that high heel use, especially in combination with additional weight, may contribute to increased osteoarthritis risk in women.’
Other recent research has shown that when a woman slips on a pair of heels, it takes, on average, just over an hour for her feet to start to hurt.
The survey, for the College of Podiatry, found that women are three times as likely as men to cram their feet into uncomfortable shoes – and that as a result, nine out of ten have suffered problems from bunions and corns to sprains and strains.
Experts warn that the prolonged wearing of high heels can also trigger stress fractures and trapped nerves.
On the plus side, studies show that men are more likely to help a woman wearing heels than one in flats.
Newsfeed
Videos
Artur Vanetsyan: I think you'll see me more often at various events in future
