Common Foot Deformities are Inherited: Study

A new study appearing in the journal Arthritis Care & Research reports that white men and women of European descent are prone to inherit common foot disorders like bunions, hammer or claw toe, or lesser toe deformities.

The findings, from Framingham Foot Study, are the first of its kind to assess the heritability of foot disorders in humans.

Prior to this, studies have shown that nearly 60 percent of older adults suffer from foot disorders, which restrict their mobility and lower their quality of life. A study by Nix et al suggests that 23 percent of people belonging to the age group of 18-65 suffer from bunions, with nearly 36 percent of those above 65 years of age suffering from the foot deformity.

Experts claim that older adults with a high body mass index are at a higher risk for foot disorders. Not much, however, is known about the genetics involved in this development.

The current study was led by Dr. Marian Hannan from Hebrew SeniorLife and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and Editor in Chief of Arthritis Care & Research. It consisted of 1,370 individuals who had enrolled themselves in the Framingham Foot Study. Participants belonged to a mean age of 66 years, and nearly 57 percent of them were females.

Foot examinations were conducted between the years 2002-2008 to check for plantar soft tissue atrophy, lesser toe deformities and hallux valgus, commonly known as bunions. Researchers estimated the heritability of these deformities with the help of software that performs genetic analyses of familial data.

Based on the results, it was known that the occurrence of plantar soft tissue atrophy, lesser toe deformities and bunions was 28 percent, 30 percent and 31 percent respectively.

Nearly half of the older population in the U.S. and Europe are affected with two most common structural foot disorders i.e., hallux valgus and lesser toe deformity. The study revealed that these two foot deformities are highly heritable, depending on age and sex, whereas plantar soft tissue atrophy did not reveal major heritability.

"Our study is the largest investigation of the heritability of common foot disorders in older adults, confirming that bunions and lesser toe deformities are highly inheritable in Caucasian men and women of European descent," concludes Dr. Hannan. "These new findings highlight the importance of furthering our understanding of what causes greater susceptibility to these foot conditions, as knowing more about the pathway may ultimately lead to early prevention or early treatment."