Shoe Insoles Do Not Prevent Back Pain, Says Study

If you have back pain, you might have considered wearing shoe insoles. According to the ads, they'll help your posture and help you relax. Insoles will help prevent you from getting back pain all day, right? That's not what researchers found in a recent study, according to a press release.

It is estimated that between 60 to 85 percent of Americans will suffer with back pain at some point. Additionally, Americans spend approximately $100 billion from back pain in lost time at work and medical treatment for back pain.

While many commercials tout the benefits of using shoe insoles to prevent back pain, physicians may recommend their use, and many people purchase them for this reason, there is no solid proof that they actually help prevent back pain.

Researchers with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found that the majority of the prior research in this field involved younger people. Even so, they believe that their results were conclusive in showing that shoe insoles do not help with back pain.

"I personally think they are over-prescribed. I will use them for certain indications, but not for back pain. Do they help some people? Yes. Do they help everybody? No," said Paul Hecht, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, who is trained in foot and ankle surgery.

Researchers reviewed data on three prior studies that involved a total of 2,061 participants. The focus of the prior studies had been using standardized, customized, or no insoles or inserts to help prevent back pain.

The three previous studies had targeted different groups of people. One of the studies was targeted at back pain in male military recruits. These members used different interventions between five to 14 weeks without showing improvement from any of the devices.

Another study was focused on people who were not in the military. Researchers had studied groups of people who had to stand for significant periods of the day, such as nurses, laboratory workers. Insoles decreased the pain in a few participants, and shifted it from the back to the lower extremities in others.