Running Barefoot May Limit Foot Pain

Running barefoot may avoid jarring impact.
The Boston Globe (1/28, Johnson) reports, "New research, led by Harvard scientists and published today" in the journal Nature, "shows that people who run barefoot or with minimal shoes -- as people have done for millions of years -- often land on their feet in a way that avoids a jarring impact." Whereas most shoe-clad runners strike the ground heel-first, jarring their bones, "barefoot runners tend to land on the ball or middle of their foot." Still, "researchers need to do followup studies to test whether less impact translates into fewer injuries."
HealthDay (1/27, Dotinga) reports, however, that study author Daniel Lieberman, a professor in Harvard University's Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, said that if you do tend to heel strike, it's probably best to wear shoes to cushion it.