The NeuroSkeptic blog reports:
Neuroscience’s Shoe Saga
If you delve into the wildest depths of the scientific literature, you will find a trilogy of papers so weird, that they have become legendary.
In these articles, spanning a 12 year period, author Jarl Flensmark says that heeled shoes cause mental illness, while flat footwear promotes brain health:
- Is there an association between the use of heeled footwear and schizophrenia? (2004)
- Physical activity, eccentric contractions of plantar flexors, and neurogenesis: therapeutic potential of flat shoes in psychiatric and neurological disorders (2009)
- Flat shoes increase neurogenesis (2016)…
Unsurprisingly, Flensmark’s bizarre work has been a regular feature of ‘weird science’ compilations such as Improbable Research and many others. But did Jarl Flensmark really believe that shoes affect brain function, or was it all a joke? ….
