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The treatment for edema is indeed proper fitting shoes and socks. That is what I couldn't grasp as shoeless being a overall blanket benefit for all people.

The article you posted has a great deal to say about Clark who "set out to design a shoe that was barely a shoe at all: no padding, no arch support, no heel." I have respect for him and his product as well as his testimony, but I highly doubt any physicians recommend his shoes.

Editor, those shoes are designed using the same faulty science that gives us runnign shoes more dangerour than out day to day street shoes.

Here's a article on the foot as a pump. (Click)

Here's something more lay-friendly: The foot pump

There is a natural physiologic pump foot pump formed by the venous plantar plexus in the sole of the foot, which imitates the natural sequence of physical venous flow. The venous foot pump consists of large venae cominantes of the lateral plantar artery that respond to the immediate effects of weight bearing rather than muscular movement (Hutcheson, 1999).

The mechanism of the foot pump relies on the compression and stimulation of the lateral plantar artery. The plantar arch is found in the arch in the sole of the foot and is formed by the anastamosing branches of the plantar arteries.

As a patient stands, weight is applied to the sole of the foot and the plantar arch is flattened. The resultant stretching of the veins allows the blood to be pumped through the long and short saphenous veins and into the deep calf veins. Weight bearing under the instep empties the deep plantar veins, and weight bearing on the heel and metatarsal heads empties the whole system (Gardner & Fox, 1983). Even stretching the arch without weight bearing may be sufficient to forcefully empty the veins and Gardner and Fox (1983) also found that weight bearing on a flaccid hemiplegic leg with the knee locked, would cause flow in the femoral vein, strongly suggesting that the foot pump is also functional in paraplegic legs.

http://www.jcn.co.uk/journal.asp?MonthNum=06&YearNum=2005&Type=backissue&ArticleID=810

More flow = better clearnnig of exccess fluids.

(Now, back to bed before the alarm rings.)

O.K., that was a little over my head. I do have two observations, neither benefiting the conversation perhaps. My Dad in his final year had his leg amputated above the knee all because he got gangrene in one toe due to poor blood circulation. I was saddened and outraged at the decision because I knew (he had ALZ) if he could make the decision he would not have allowed that type of "treatment".

And secondly, how does fallen arches (flat feet) work into this conversation about foot pump and shoeless? Thanks for listening to me ramble.