Five fingers in the treatment of foot pathologies and for running

Five fingers shoes allow toes to spread

Wearing conventional shoes is a tremendous stress for some parts of the foot especially because of the narrow toe box of shoes. The shape of the toe box of conventional shoes tend to squeeze the toes. The result is that especially the big toe is angled inside and I believe it contributes to the development of bunions.
Five fingers shoes, which are true gloves for your feet avoid this problem and your toes are freer and tend to be self oriented straightforward. On the other hand conventional shoes are cushioned and their soles tend to diminish the impact of foot landing on the heel.
My first advices based on a preliminary experience with FF:
1/ If you never went barefoot be very cautious. You should begin for instance by one workout each two weeks.
2/ A non hard surface is a good choice, wet sand a must
3/ Your first workout should be short and rather fast in order to move on a landing of your stride on the forefoot instead of a heel landing favored by conventional shoes.
4/ This change could cause sacro-iliac problems because you will adapt to the anterior landing by advancing your center of gravity.
5/ Soreness in the soleus muscle is usual after the first workouts
References
1/ BMJ. 2010 Sep 27;341:c5130. doi: 10.1136/bmj.c5130.

Hallux valgus.

Choa R, Sharp R, Mahtani KR.
2/Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2009 Apr 15;(2):CD000964.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2167093/pdf/brmedj02400-0015.pdf

WITHDRAWN: Interventions for treating hallux valgus (abductovalgus) and bunions.

Ferrari J, Higgins JP, Prior TD.
3/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jrnj-7YKZE& feature=player_embedded#!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891842214000032