Expensive running shoes offer no benefit in terms of cushioning impact and overall comfort compared with 'cheap' trainers, reported The Times and other newspapers on October 11 2007. The researchers found that “no amount of built-in air bubbles, shock absorbers or other cushioning makes a difference to the overall pressure on the foot.”
The stories are based on a study that compared the performance of low-, medium-, and high-priced running shoes in men while they were walking, and in a smaller group who ran. The interpretation by the newspapers that this study has shown that expensive trainers do not protect runners’ feet is not quite accurate as the “running” part of the experiment was small and the researchers themselves state that “it was not possible to reliably detect differences between pressure in shoes from different brands and across cost ranges”.
Importantly, the participants in the study were normal runners. They didn’t have any gait abnormalities such as over or under pronation (where the foot has some rotation when it moves) and as such, were unlikely to require expensive, specialist shoes.
Being overweight may not be as unhealthy as it was 40 years ago," BBC News reports. New research has found a body mass index (BMI) of 27 is linked to the lowest rate of death – but someone with a BMI of 27 is currently classed as being overweight. BMI is a score calculated by dividing your weight (usually in kilograms) by the square of your height (usually in metres and centimetres). Currently, a BMI of 25 to 29.9 is classified as being overweight. Researchers looked at 120,528 people from Copenhagen, recruited from 1976 to 2013, and separately compared those recruited during the 1970s, 1990s and 2000s. They were followed up until they died, emigrated, or the study finished. The BMI linked to the lowest risk of having died from any cause was 23.7 in the 1970s group, 24.6 in the 1990s group, and had further risen to 27 in the 2003-13 group. It may be the case that the suggested upward shift in optimal BMI is the result of improvements in preventative treatments for weight-rela...