Reviews Show Insoles Won't Help Back Pain

Are you looking to shoe insoles for back pain relief?  Then you might need to look elsewhere, a new review of studies shows.

The review, which was published in The Cochrane Library, looked at three studies involving 2,061 people, which focused on the use of customized and standard insoles versus either no treatment or sham insoles for back pain prevention.  Another three studies comprising 256 patients examined the use of insoles for either prevention or treatment of existing back pain.

The review showed that there was inadequate evidence to support purchasing or prescribing shoe insoles to either prevent back pain or treat it. Furthermore, many of the people in the studies reported that back pain insoles were uncomfortable.

So are shoe insoles useless? Not necessarily, say the researchers. There are some people who did benefit from them. Furthermore, says lead author Tali Sahar, PhD, of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, “Insoles might be beneficial for prevention or treatment of other disorders, but this was not the topic of our review.”