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Women have always been told that wearing high heels can damage their feet, joints, and muscles – but they continue to wear heels anyway, to the point that women in Britain take over £260 million worth of sick leave time each year.
Recently, Dr. David Agus at the University of Southern California discovered a new risk that rises from wearing heels constantly: cancer.
Physically, and most directly, high heels cause women to develop hammer toes, where the toes are perpetually bent; muscle fatigue from straining in heels for hours each day; and osteoarthritis, the general wear and use of joints.
Dr. Agus establishes that wearing a heeled shoe in and of itself doesn’t actually cause cancer.
Wearing heels or other uncomfortable shoes for prolonged periods of time causes low-level inflammation.
High heels force women’s feet into strange shapes and often cause women to stand with incorrect posture or walk with awkward gaits. These unnatural movements encourage inflammation in the body as it attempts to naturally heal itself from the stress of these abnormal movements.
Dr. Agus and his research team believe that perpetual, low-level inflammatory conditions like those caused by heels can eventually cause damage to tissues throughout the body.
The chemicals present in inflammatory healing responses are often linked to “our most troubling degenerative diseases,” Dr. Agus said. These diseases include “heart disease, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, and can prematurely increase cancer risk,” Dr. Agus elaborated.
At the same time, putting your body through any sort of chronic, persistent stress can inhibit our bodies’ DNA repair processes, thereby increasing our risk of developing cancer. “When the body’s DNA repair shop is closed,” Dr. Agus explained, “it leaves us vulnerable to cancer and other diseases.”
According to Dr. Agus, most of the activities we do each day cause us to “cancer” – but healthy bodies are able to handle these abnormal growths and conditions. If our bodies are compromised, however, by the stress of wearing heels or other chronic pain, then we are hindering our bodies’ natural ability to fight cancer.
Dr. Agus concedes that it’s not as simple as labeling a certain height of heel as being too high or too short to cause cancer, but as a general rule of thumb, “If your heels hurt or limit your movement, if you find your feet ache or throb at the end of the day, then stop wearing those heels.”
