Cobblestones are Good for You

pin_gween writes "Need to lose weight, lower blood pressure, help your balance? The Oregon Research Institute reports that walking on 'cobblestone mat surface resulted in significant reductions in blood pressure and improvements in balance and physical performance.' The benefits may have foundations in 'the principles of reflexology, in that the uneven surface of the cobblestones stimulate and regulate "acupoints" located on the soles of the feet.' Although the study was conducted with elderly patients, no reason to think it can't help most folks."

Comments

Accupressure?

[jericho4.0]

Yeah. I'll take that as a hypothesis when I see any evidence of it, you know, actually working.

ORI is a pretty solid group, usually.

I expect more out of people

[xutopia]

"The benefits may have foundations in 'the principles of reflexology, in that the uneven surface of the cobblestones stimulate and regulate "acupoints" located on the soles of the feet.'"

How about something less far fetched? Like "uneven paveway makes you use your muscles more"... Why do we always have to explain things with divine or unexplained phenomenons when simple ideas work just as well?

Re:I expect more out of people

[ziekke]

Pretty simply, because it doesn't work. The reason they explain it using divine or unexplained phenomenons is because they are not scientifically provable. The most likely explanation for this "cobblestone" bunk is that it's pure placebo or something that doesn't involve "reflexology" is at work. I'd like to see double-blind placebo-controlled studies that prove the validity of this practice. Also, if you can prove reflexology works, you can win $1,000,000USD from the James Randi Educational Foundation (http://randi.org./

Re:I expect more out of people

[St. Arbirix]

I thought he was going after homeopathy. My ex-girlfriend was running a high fever but she refused to take off the shelf fever medication instead opting for the homeopathic fever medication her mother had provided. It scared me that night because I had an inkling of an idea what she was taking (her fever was 103F and her heart rate was well over 100bpm), but it freaked the hell out of me when I looked up exaclty what homeopathic meant.

Her mother, by the way, is a Swedish ex-nurse who now runs a reflexology practice out of her home. The whole lot is batty as hell. The girlfriend only tried to stab me on three different occasions while I was kicking her out. She told me earlier on that everyone in her family had mental problems (father's a bipolar math professor, she's bipolar too) but you're likely to get a chair thrown at you if you try to argue the veracity of homeopathy or reflexology (yes, this happened a few times too).

I've since learned to associate vehement spirituality with mental instability. Keeps me from getting clubbed or excorsized cause those things fucking hurt.

Re:I expect more out of people

[gstoddart]

How about something less far fetched? Like "uneven paveway makes you use your muscles more"... Why do we always have to explain things with divine or unexplained phenomenons when simple ideas work just as well?

Why? Recently, a lot of studies have demonstrated that accupunture has a measureable effect on pain management.

A lot of traditional herbals are being shown to have efficacy.

I'm not saying one should trade in a doctor for a shaman, but western medicine is finally figuring out that some of the cures that have been in use for hundreds (if not thousands) of years might actually do something.

Summarily dismissing the findings is just as meaningless as blind belief in the fact that it can't be helpful.

Re:I expect more out of people

[Guy Harris]

Summarily dismissing the findings is just as meaningless as blind belief in the fact that it can't be helpful.

He's not dismissing the findings, he's dismissing one explanation of the findings. Just because some traditional medicine or traditional medical practice is found to work, that doesn't necessarily mean that the traditional explanation of that medicine or process is correct.

How Fitting

[ndansmith]

Parts of downtown Portland, OR are paved with cobbelstones taken from old ships (which used the stones for ballast).

One question, when did Slashdot start posting commercials as stories? "Buy a Cobblestone mat" is the link emblazoned just below the synopsis on the linked page, and the mat is apparently being sold dirrectly by ORI, apparently for profit.

Re:Reflexologists know feet!

[fyrewulff]

A footstitute?

Quack! Don't waste your time/money!

[ziekke]

Reflexology is not a science, nor has it been proven effective (or even real). It's surprising how many institutions are providing courses/products that teach or use such ridiculous methods (homeopathy, reflexology, magnet therapy, etc.).

Whether this "cobblestone" crap actually works I have no idea, but if it is rooted in "reflexology" and "traditional chinese medicine" then I'd have to bet that there will never be any truly scientific studies that prove this product.

The more likely explanation is that these people age 60+ that they tested are actually WALKING, as opposed to sitting around. Not to mention the likely placebo effect of being told "walk these cobblestones, they make you feel better!"

For more information on Reflexology, please see:

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ reflex.html

And remember folks, think critically. Anything that advertises itself using "accupressure" or "hidden pathways" is bunk.

Re:Quack! Don't waste your time/money!

[jericho4.0]

The OP is modded "troll" as I write this.

Our society has become a place where truth has no value, and people think it rude to demand proof. Everywhere I hear and see belief in magic and superstition, from reflexology to homeopathy to physic hotlines. Much of it cloaked in pseudoscience and defended as science. WTF happened to rationalism?

Re:Quack! Don't waste your time/money!

[Mr. Slippery]

if it is rooted in "reflexology" and "traditional chinese medicine" then I'd have to bet that there will never be any truly scientific studies that prove this product...

Reflexology has nothing to do with Chinese Medicine.

And remember folks, think critically. Anything that advertises itself using "accupressure" or "hidden pathways" is bunk.

"Thinking critically" also means being skeptical of the claims of current medical orthodoxy - looking at the actual evidence rather than being swayed by name-calling.

I don't know anything about reflexology, or about this particular study. But I know more than a little bit about acupressure and Chinese Medicine. While the research is still scanty, there are good clinical studies showing acupressure to be effective.

The NCCAOM has started working more closely with the NCCAM, and I hope to see more and better research forthcoming. Meanwhile, acupressure is an extremely safe treatment that seems to clearly have, at a bare minimum, positive non-specific effects in relieving stress and chronic muscle tension.

I commented on the relationship between the physiological/reductionist and the Chinese Medicine models here a few days ago, I'll take the liberty of briefly repeating myself:

There are several physiological theories about the meridians and points of acupressure, three that I know about involve nervous reflexes, the electrical properties of fascia, and a supposed network of less-differentiated cells throughout the body. It's possible that different points work by different mechanisms. Certainly the "placebo effect" plays a role - as it does in any treatment. Google for placebo surgery, it's fascinating.

Many pracitioners of Chinese Medicine don't care much about trying to find a Western Medicine explanation for how acupuncture, Asian bodywork therapy, and Chinese herbs, create their effects. They see it work every day, that's enough for them. (The same can be said of many Western physicians, a surprising number of whom have little interest or knowledge of biology.) But there is certainly a subset of the community that is interested in understanding from both points of view.

IMHO it's unfortunate that many practitioners of CM have latched on to the idea that qi, a fundamental ascept of the CM model, is some sort of electromagnetic-like energy field. This is a misinterpretation, attempting to fit Taoist concepts of the Universe into a Aristotelian grid. The CM model is very much a functional, not a structural, one; the Vital Substances, the Zang-Fu organs, and the meridians are best understood by what they do, not by chopping people up looking for them.

I recommend Ted Kaptchuk's book The Web That Has No Weaver to those interested in learning more about Chinese Medicine.

Re:Quack! Don't waste your time/money!

[ziekke]

"Thinking critically" also means being skeptical of the claims of current medical orthodoxy - looking at the actual evidence rather than being swayed by name-calling.

You are exactly right, however I don't see how that was relevant in my post, or in this thread, as we are not disputing medical practice. I never said that quacks didn't exist in every line of practice. However I will say that anyone practicing acupuncture or reflexology is a quack.

Reflexology has nothing to do with Chinese Medicine.

I didn't mention reflexology together with chinese medicine for no reason. RTFA. Excerpt: "Cobblestone-like walking paths are common in China. The activity is rooted in traditional Chinese medicine and relates to some of the principles of reflexology, in that the uneven surface of the cobblestones stimulate and regulate "acupoints" located on the soles of the feet."

Many pracitioners of Chinese Medicine don't care much about trying to find a Western Medicine explanation for how acupuncture

Whether they care or not doesn't mean it works just because they believe in it. Proof of acupuncture is anecdotal at best, there is absolutely no proof that such techniques are scientifically sound.

Sure there have been lots of "studies" done on acupuncture claiming that it Really Works, however none of which were appropriate in controlling placebo and other factors such as blinding.

They see it work every day, that's enough for them.

But what about all the times that it doesn't work? And there are many. The trouble with things like this is people focus more on the times they succeed and tend to forget about all the times that things failed.

(The same can be said of many Western physicians, a surprising number of whom have little interest or knowledge of biology.)

There is a huge difference between a medical doctor prescribing you a treatment that has been properly scientifically and medically proven and tested without knowing the exact biological aspects, and some quack sticking needles in you because he believes in meridians and qi, and all the other things that whatever acupuncturist you talk to believes.

The CM model is very much a functional, not a structural, one; the Vital Substances, the Zang-Fu organs, and the meridians are best understood by what they do, not by chopping people up looking for them.

You don't have to chop people up to look for meridians. You simply have to submit the practice to a real scientific double blind-placebo controlled test. Fancy that, here is an example: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/143/1/1 0

For some real information see http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ acu.html

To quote:

The National Council Against Health Fraud has concluded:

• Acupuncture is an unproven modality of treatment.
• Its theory and practice are based on primitive and fanciful concepts of health and disease that bear no relationship to present scientific knowledge
• Research during the past 20 years has not demonstrated that acupuncture is effective against any disease.
• Perceived effects of acupuncture are probably due to a combination of expectation, suggestion, counter-irritation, conditioning, and other psychologic mechanisms.
• The use of acupuncture should be restricted to appropriate research settings, Insurance companies should not be required by law to cover acupuncture treatment, Licensure of lay acupuncturists should be phased out.
• Consumers who wish to try acupuncture should discuss their situation with a knowledgeable physician who has no commercial interest [20].

Re:Quack! Don't waste your time/money!

[ziekke]

Believe it or not, you pretty much nailed it right on the head there.

There are lots and lots of Doctors (and not necessarily Medical Doctors, this includes physicists, biologists, etc.) that subscribe to some of these quackery beliefs, not even limited to simply reflexology or acupuncture. Dowsing, astrology, HOMEOPATHY all that stuff is just as unproven and fake as the next. The belief in some of these things even falls down to psychological factors (such as the ideomotor effect (2) with regards to dowsing, and placebo effect for most - if not all - alternative medicine practices). It's interesting how a physicist can believe that dowsing really works, but they are out there!

In the case of the "traditional chinese medicine", the arguement is that it has been around for 2000 years So It Must Work!. Unfortunately, just cause it's been around for a long time, doesn't mean it works either.

Aside from the personal/psychological influences that cause people to follow these things, a huge factor are the people marketing the products and therapies.

Snake oil charmers tend to be able to sell this stuff by scaring people with lies. Fear that the "industry" is out to get you. Fear that "drugs" are poisoning you. It's easy to get someone to believe that there are conspiracies (that are conveniently unprovable) working against them and that the only way out is their form of alternative medicine.

A lot of people lured to alternative medicine are done so because they feel they have been somehow wronged by the MD profession. Like they believe they have a true illness that MDs can't locate/cure (because it doesn't exist). So they go to a naturopath who is only too happy to say "Of course there's something wrong with you! Now that will be $50 a week for therapy plus $35 a month for my homeopathic pills. Don't worry, they are 100x diluted so they are SUPER-effective!". Lots of alternative medicine practitioners even go so far as to claim you have an illness you don't know about, and that only they can cure it! Colonix for example is one such thing, as well as people who say you should be taking TONS of vitamin supplements for various reasons. Anyone heard of magnet therapy (Quackwatch Info)?

The sad thing about it all, is that it's difficult to combat with logic and sense. You say "but its not proven" and they say "You just have to believe!" or "So-and-so said it worked, so it must! I don't care if science says it doesn't".

If you go to http://quackwatch.org/ there is an insane amount of information there with regards to how people get sucked in to this stuff.

Re:Quack! Don't waste your time/money!

[Apreche]

The NCCAM is not real science.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ nccam.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/altm ed/snake/evidence.html

Also, search within this page for NCCAM
http://www.randi.org/jr/042602.html

And that's just skimming the surface.

The NCCAM is a bunch of quackery and pseudoscience. The most you will ever get from acupuncture, reflexology, chiropracty or any other bullshit is the placebo effect. If anyone claims that any of these things are real, as them why they haven't won the million dollar challenge.

But don't believe me just on my word. Do your own research. Use google. Go to the library. Read what real scientists and various studies say about the NCCAM and the bs that is most alternative medicine. When you are done, you will become as enraged as I am that your tax dollars are spent funding this crap instead of working on real medicine.

Re:Quack! Don't waste your time/money!

[Mr. Slippery]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's not stupid to suspect that research that showed acupuncture to work was incorrect.

There's nothing extraordinary about claiming that a system of healthcare used continuously for several thousand years may actually have some benefit. There's nothing extraordinary about claiming that stimulating one part of the body can have a distal effect - anyone who's found the "skritchy spot" on a dog that makes the leg spasm has seen it.

Indeed it is an extraordinary claim that the millions of people who feel that they have benefitted from CM over the past 4,000 years - as well as those researchers finding a benefit in controlled studies - were all fooled, that Chinese Medicine is a massive conspiracy.

It's not stupid to suspect that research that showed acupuncture not to work was incorrect. Many of these studies did not involve anything like the acupuncture that is practiced clinically - for example they didn't have the procedure performed by trained acupuncturists, or don't use CM methods of assessment/diagnosis, or use acupressure as a sham for acupuncure when both will stimulate a tsubo, or don't allow for anything like a normal course of treatment.

Knocking down strawman versions of CM may be fun for psuedo-skeptics and defenders of current medical orthodoxy, but it ain't science.

Re:Quack! Don't waste your time/money!

[Mr. Slippery]

RTFA. Excerpt: "Cobblestone-like walking paths are common in China. The activity is rooted in traditional Chinese medicine and relates to some of the principles of reflexology, in that the uneven surface of the cobblestones stimulate and regulate "acupoints" located on the soles of the feet."

Then TFA is blowing smoke. There is only one TCM acupoint located on the sole of the foot, Kidney 1; and CM has no relation at all to reflexology.

But what about all the times that it doesn't work? And there are many. The trouble with things like this is people focus more on the times they succeed and tend to forget about all the times that things failed.

Of course. The same is true for any treatment, conventional or complementary. Western physicians aren't immune to believing in treatments that don't work. Hell, just a few decades ago your doctor would be telling you to take up smoking to help lose weight.

There is a huge difference between a medical doctor prescribing you a treatment that has been properly scientifically and medically proven and tested...

But very few of the treatments used in standard Western medicine have been so tested! Please show me a controlled double-blind study of coronary bypass surgery.

You simply have to submit the practice to a real scientific double blind-placebo controlled test. Fancy that, here is an example: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/143/1/1 0

A study with only two fatal flaws:

• "A prescription of acupuncture at fixed points may differ from acupuncture administered in clinical settings". In other words, what was tested was nothing like acupuncture as it is actually applied.
• part of the control group received "noninsertive simulated acupuncture", which will also stimulate points - in some cases, as effectively as needle insertion. Those of us who practice acupressure and ABT stimulate points without needle insertion all the time

So you've cited a study that has no bearing on clinical acupuncture.

A better example of a double-blind controlled methodology for acupuncture research is that developed by Allen and Schnyer, where the control is geniune acupuncture adminstered for a condition other than that under investigation. They found:

Thus, based on a small outpatient sample of women with major depression, it appeared that acupuncture provided significant symptom relief at rates comparable to standard treatments such as psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. The effect sizes observed in this small sample were at least as large or larger than those seen in trials of antidepressant medication or psychotherapy, and they suggest that a larger clinical trial is warranted.

(Here is another study using that methodology.)

No reason?

[NereusRen]

"Although the study was conducted with elderly patients, no reason to think it can't help most folks."

Hey, I thought of a reason:

"The benefits may have foundations in 'the principles of reflexology'"

As a Rollerblade User

[Deliveranc3]

I strongly condemn this arrrrttititititiclelelelelele.

Reflexology /foot massage

[FidelCatsro]

Now Reflexology is a foot massage , there is no difference apart from that a foot massage will generally be more thorough .
Things it can help with are
1:) Foot pain
2:) lower ankle pain
3:) stress , it feels great
4:) probably nothing else
Walking on cobbles (depending on the cobbles) can be a very relaxing experience .
This has nothing to do with the principles of reflexology which have been consistently proven to be nothing more than a nice foot massage. Of course it can help lower blood pressure if the high blood pressure is caused by stress, its relaxing , its fun.
Why ruin a perfectly good (if obvious) research piece by comparing it to snake oil

I had much the same thought

[jd]

It would put more stress on the muscles (which helps), it would also exercise those parts of the brain handling balance (which will also help). If pressure has anything to do with it at all, it may (just may) help massage the feet, which may in turn account for the improved circulation. All of the above will also marginally increase the blood flow to the feet, which may also help.

There are plenty of other possibilities, too. Pressure generates heat and heat leads to the opening of capiliaries. Could the bend-and-stretch of blood vessels help?

There's also the fact that flat surfaces are much more lenient on poor posture and poor walking habits. An uneven surface may, then, lead indirectly to a whole host of other minor improvements in walking that yield benefits.

In other words, we have some data but a few hundred possible variables we can attribute it to.

Unexplained phenomena exist, there's no doubt about that - science isn't dead, yet - but I think it safe to assume that 99.9% of anything at the purely mechanical level is going to require purely mechanical explanations, all of which we are likely to know already.

Easier explanation...

[elander]

An uneven surface requires you to use more muscles to balance your body, and keep from falling. Using more muscles leads to at least three benefits:

• Higher energy consumption
• Building strength
• Lubricating joints

This is not news, everyone involved in physical training knows, or should know, about this. Several studies have also shown that "micromovements", such as "bobbing knees" (constantly moving your leg up and down when seated) also leads to less overweight. Cobblestone mats is just another way to make you work a little harder, and so can prove effective if you use them a lot. A more pleasant way would be to simply get out more, preferrably out of town. A walk in a forest typically requires more energy expenditure than a stroll around the block.

My human rights are being violated

[Frantactical Fruke]

As a rollerblader I must register my disapproval of any stories displaying cobblestones in a positive light.

Pave the earth!
Turn paradise into a parking lot!
And put those elderly patients on blades. I guarantee they'll gain "improvements in balance and physical performance" - or die trying.

Oh, and Mozilla (Debian package 1.7.8-1) crashed with a segmentation fault the first time I hit reply on this story. The international cobblestone conspiracy has agents working on free software!!! Foam! Splutter! Moan!

Because it is true that's why

[marcus]

Personal experience:

We got a treadmill. It is great for dialing in your heart rate. Adjust your speed in 1/10 of MPH increments and the incline with 1/2 degree resolution. Want 145 BPM and the monitor shows 139? It's easy, just speed up 1/10th MPH.

Problem is, it is smooth, very smooth, IOW boring as far as your body is concerned.

After months of watching TV while running on the 'mill, the weather was looking good and I got a wild hair and decided to run "in the wild". I ran the same distance(by GPS), in same amount of time, with the same heart rate monitor and maintained the same pulse rate. The next day, I was sore all over. My legs ached up and down as well as a variety of trunk muscles from hips to abs to ribs to shoulder blades.

The only difference was that I ran on grass, dirt, up and down curbs, wooden bridges, dried creek beds, and I actually had to turn corners. It's a lot more of a workout than the smooth, monotonous 'mill.