Interview with Daniel Lieberman:
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoo...Human-Body-has-a-Story-to-Tell-.html?page=all
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoo...Human-Body-has-a-Story-to-Tell-.html?page=all
Outside Interview with Daniel Lieberman
- Thread starter Bare Lee
- Start date
Plenty of info there, but I've got a question: Is Lieberman implying that although flat feet do not interfere with procreation they do otherwise inhibit health and/or fitness? It sounded to me like be was agreeing that orthotics make up for the " deficit " of flat feet!
Flat feet are not normal per Lieberman in the article...he still falls back to conventional wisdom here and there...I think he may be a little gun shy about promoting barefoot. I don't think its the angry barefoot running crowd he is referring to.
From Lieberman "Yeah, sometimes I wish I'd never touched the subject! People have so many preconceptions about it and so much anger about this particular issue, which I find interesting. From my perspective, I'm not crazy about it. "
But all in all I think its good he is bringing this kind of info up...keeps it in the conversation.
I think he was saying that things like arch supports cause the genes for flat feet to be phenotypically expressed, whereas formally, in a more active lifestyle, they would remain unexpressed, dormant or latent.
"For example, we know there's a genetic basis for things like myopia and flat feet. Those genes didn't cause people to get myopic or flat footed back in the paleolithic, because they weren't living inside, and reading books, and wearing shoes with arch supports."
One of the main themes of the book is this relation between gene and environment, how our genes are in many ways maladaptive to a modern lifestyle. That's the basic Paleo Diet/Primal Living message too. Since I use a little evolutionary theory in my semiotic work, I bought the book and will be skimming for useful ideas. Should be here tomorrow I think.
OK, so if a person has the gene for flat feet but is living and moving around barefoot there will be no problem, but that same person using support and living a sedentary life style may develop problems that the "normal" arched person won't.
That was my understanding, yes. I did see some barefoot village elders in Mozambique with pretty flat feet, well-callused of course.
Seems he's also implying that someone with a gene for myopia might not have any problems if they don't grow up reading so much. I have nothing anecdotal to add to that.
Of interest to dentistry: Most elders I worked with have few teeth remaining, that's for sure, although my wife didn't get her first cavity until she immigrated to America! So there's plus and minuses there I guess, although I would imagine a little brushing and flossing would go a long way towards keeping their teeth in good condition for much longer.
I'd modify this slightly. First, I doubt there is a single "flat foot" gene, just as there is not a single "short" gene. There are a number of genes involved that can give a range of arch heights.
Second, as Hoffman pointed out in 1905, in "Conclusions Drawn from a Comparative Study of the Feet of Barefooted and Shoe-wearing Peoples", natural feet come with varying arch types. But what he found is that low arches were not pathological the way they are for shoe-wearers, "If these statistics are a fair index for all feet, the conclusion is justified that weakness of the longitudinal arch rarely results in its depression, and that flat foot as a pathological entity hardly exists."
Right, Lieberman says "genetic basis" and "genes." And I think a charitable interpretation of his interview answer could be read the same as Hoffman's analysis, that flat-footedness as a pathology doesn't exist among unshod populations. That's the way I took it anyway, and it concurs with my casual observations in Mozambique and elsewhere.
On my trail run today I was thinking flat feet might have at least one advantage...the skin under the arch would be well conditioned and better on the rough terrain. I have higher arches and the arch skin is the weak link when running thru rocky/rooty trails.
