TO: All Alzheimer's disease researchers, doctors, and patients.

The purpose of this yearly post is to stimulate interest and discussion about the biomechanical effects of shoes on "age-related" degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease. Chiropodist Dr. Simon J. Wikler pioneered efforts to understand the influences of shoes in the 1950's, but his work was neglected during the subsequent drug- and diet-based approaches to medicine. However, the prolific footwear historian and podiatrist Dr. William A. Rossi clearly demonstrated throughout his publications that shoes influence the posture of the human body. Therefore, using the posture-based approaches to medicine of the distinguished orthopedist Dr. Joel E. Goldthwait, I have expanded Dr. Wikler's insightful work to include a variety of illnesses and conditions whose causes remain unknown.

Alzheimer's disease is just one example of diseases that are related to the use of footwear, especially since it affects women disproportionately more than men. Women's footwear is more physically deforming to the feet because of higher heels, pointier toes, and smaller sizes, but any shoe might have a more deforming effect on the lighter build of a woman's body. Even the first clinical case, presenting to Dr. Alois Alzheimer in 1901, was a woman called "Auguste D." who was born on May 16, 1850, during the last year that shoes were made completely by hand. The second clinical case of what became known as Alzheimer's disease was a man, "Johann F." born about a year later on March 8, 1853. Auguste and Johann were among the first children growing up in the manufactured shoe era following Issac Singer's 1851 sewing machine, which made modern shoes widely available for the first time in the history of mankind.

You may find my thesis regarding shoes and disease on the Internet at:
http://www.shoebusters.com
Thank you very much for considering my novel approach.

James Semmel
Albuquerque, New Mexico