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 While the runners reported blisters on their taped feet, the vast
majority said they’d used the product again. The high level of
satisfaction suggests the tape may work despite the study’s
findings, the lead author said.
“We had anecdotally seen that paper tape worked on ultramarathon
runners in deserts around the world while providing medical care, so
we set out to prove it using rigorous scientific method,” Dr. Grant
Lipman told Reuters Health in an email.
Lipman is a surgeon with the Division of Emergency Medicine at the
Stanford University School of Medicine in California.
Blisters are typically not major medical problems, but they can
impair concentration, decrease athletic performance and possibly
lead to additional injuries, the researchers write in Wilderness and
Environmental Medicine.
“Everyone gets blisters,” Lipman said. “They're called the enemy of
the feet for a reason, and there is no quicker way to ruin a day
hike, walk or run.”
He and his colleagues enrolled English-speaking participants in
150-mile ultramarathon races that took place in China, Australia,
Egypt, Chile and Nepal in 2010 and 2011.
A total of 90 participants completed the study - known as Pre-TAPED.
Each participant had pieces of 3M Micropore paper tape applied to
blister-prone areas of one randomly chosen foot. The other foot was
not taped for comparison.
“(The tape) is easy to apply to the toes, heels, or anywhere else on
the foot that is at risk of getting a hot spot or blister,” Lipman
said.
By the end of the races, all participants developed blisters on
their feet – most commonly on the toes. Most blisters developed
during the first two days of the races.
There was no significant difference in the number of blisters that
developed on taped feet compared to feet without tape, but 84
percent of the participants said they would use the tape in the
future.
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Lipman said that since the majority of those who used paper tape
would use it again, he believes it does work, but the study wasn’t
able to prove it.
“Our methods may have been too rigorous, and we were unable to solve
the question we set out to answer,” he said.
To address why people liked the tape despite its initial
ineffectiveness, the researchers conducted a second study.
“This second study over this past year was similar, but applied the
tape to people just where they typically got blisters (rather than
the entire foot), and it worked amazingly well,” he said.
Lipman added the data from the new study will be presented in the
next few months at scientific meetings.
“By making the study methods more specific to the individual, we
were able to show what the majority of those study participants in
PreTAPED (and) I already knew - it works,” he said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/13MxUP6 Wilderness and Environmental Medicine,
online October 30, 2014.
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