Health High heels are 'good' for you

[Rohitkapoor]

High heels are 'good' for you

Decades of dire warnings about the perils of wearing high heels, doctors have now dramatically put the boot into the idea that they are bad for women.

In fact, stilettoes may be kinder to female knees than sensible 'flatties', say researchers.

They discovered that wearing a high heel may make women less likely to develop arthritic changes in the knee joint in later life.

But, at the very least, so-called fashion victims are no worse off than women opting for low-level footwear, they claim.

The finding will be welcomed by some of the most famous legs in

the celebrity world, including British- born actress Kim Cattrall, who plays high heelwearing man-eater Samantha in TV's Sex and the City.

Another famous stiletto fan, Rachel Weisz, can feel equally vindicated.

It has long been suspected that so many women suffer painful knees in later life because of footwear.

By 65, about twice as many women as men have arthritic knees.

Researchers at Warwick University and Oxford Brookes University investigated the stiletto controversy with the help of 111 women aged 50 to 70, of whom 29 were awaiting knee replacements.

They asked about their taste in shoes and other lifestyle factors, according to a report in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. To their surprise, they found no evidence that wearing high heels was linked to knee problems.

Indeed, the statistics suggested those who regularly wore 3in heels were less likely to be suffering.

Professor Margaret Thorogood, from the Medical School at Warwick University, said certain shoes did not cause knee problems.

But being overweight before 40, doing demanding physical work and previous knee injuries all did.

In fact, there was a link between regular dancing in 3 inches heels and a reduced risk of knee problems, she said.

'It is very unlikely that prolonged wearing of high-heeled shoes represents a risk factor,' she added.

Women were shown pictures of 38 different types of shoe and asked if they had ever worn a particular type regularly, either for work, socially or dancing.

The highest heel chosen for each five- year period was used for the analysis.

The women were also asked how old they were when they first started wearing shoes with 1in, 2in or 3in heels.

Stilettos were not to blame for knee arthritis, because more than half of the 111 women surveyed - of whom some suffered arthritis and some had no knee pain at all - wore them.

Some 55.2 per cent of the women with knee arthritis regularly wore 3 inches heels, as did 67.1 per cent of women with no pain.

However, most of the women had spent several years doing physically demanding work, and several activities were linked with an increased risk of osteoarthritis of the knee, including lifting and bending.

Professor Thorogood said the evidence pointed to a different kind of strain being bad for the knees.

'Women who smoke, are overweight and do a lot of heavy housework such as scrubbing are more likely to develop painful knees later in life.

'But women who wear stiletto heels will be reassured to learn that their choice of fashion-before-comfort footwear will not lead to knee joint problems and may even prevent them.'

The findings rebut those of a Harvard Medical School team in 1998, which said high heels strain the joints, muscles and tendons of the knee.