Wrong-sized Shoes Exposes Diabetics to Serious Foot Problems

Filed in archive Notable , Research on November 13, 2007

According to research findings reported in the International Journal of Clinical Practice, more than 6 out of ten diabetics are walking around in the wrong-sized shoes, exposing themselves to serious foot problems that could lead to amputation.




The said study by the University of Dundee included a hundred patients aged 24 to 89 volunteered to take part in the shoe-size study carried out at a general diabetic clinic at Ninewells Hospital Medical School in Dundee, Scotland.

According to co-author Dr Graham Leese, a consultant at the clinic (which forms part of University of Dundee):

"All the patients had their feet fully examined and measured while they were both sitting and standing.
When people stand up their feet change shape as the arch of the foot flattens and the foot becomes wider and longer. Taking both these sets of measurements into account, only 37 per cent of the patients were actually wearing the right-sized shoes.

Interestingly, patients who didn't have problems with lack of feeling in their feet - a common problem with diabetes - were just as likely to wear badly fitting shoes as those who did.

We also discovered that almost a third of the patients said they took a different shoe size to the one they were actually wearing. This isn't helped by the fact that shoe sizes vary from make to make."

So, please check if you are wearing ill-fitting shoes.

Find more details from University of Dundee and the IJCP Article.