The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson

and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

The plight of the modern foot, conditions that plague us and how to avoid them.

For all the focus on hearts and arteries, brain tissue and muscle mass, we tend to neglect

one critical part of the body with dramatic influence over how we fare in later decades.

It's little surprise, really. Feet don't exactly garner much attention, let

alone media time. Yet the stakes are big. For example, research shows that foot conditions like

Halix Vegas, HV, a common four-foot deformity in older people commonly referred to as bunions,

was directly associated with marked decreases in quality of life. Foot pain, reduced foot function, lowered social capacity,

and even degraded general health, that sort of thing. But that's just one foot condition,

right? Yes and no. The picture of averages looks rather bleak.

A clinical assessment of 166 Hong Kong hospital outpatients over the age of 65 found that 70% of

those patients had some sort of foot condition. In the U.S., things aren't much better.

Various surveys of elderly hospital outpatients here have placed foot problem prevalence

anywhere between 30 and 95%. Even at the most conservative of estimates, that means a minimum

of one-third of all Americans over 65 will have

some form of debilitating foot disorder. And the worst part? Many of the studies discovered that

only a small percentage of these people actually report or complain about their foot problems.

Apparently, for them, it's just a fact of life. But most of us here

choose differently for ourselves. We prefer to challenge that fatalist come what may approach to aging.

Feet shouldn't be an exception. In fact, given the statistics, they might well be a smart priority.

Six common foot conditions to avoid.

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