By Mara Rose Williams,The Kansas City Star

Sweaty, 100 percent cotton socks create the worst blisters, a team of University of Missouri-Columbia biological engineering students has found.

The students tested 10 popular brands of athletic socks to find out what constitutes a good sock versus a bad one.

The experiment was not done solely to benefit athletes or because blisters are a pain.

Students said they hope a device they developed to test how socks cause blisters might also provide helpful information about socks for people who suffer diabetes or serious circulation problems.

The testing device they developed uses a motor to tilt a Plexiglas form that holds the sock material against a platform at a set pressure.

The device calculates the point at which the material slips against the platform, which reveals its “coefficient of friction.”

The higher the coefficient of friction is at the point where the sock meets the shoe, the more likely it is that a blister will form on the foot. Moisture makes the problem worse, so the tests were done in a humidity chamber.

Based on what the study revealed, Lisa Huhman, a biological engineering student, said if she were a runner she would not wear an all-cotton sock.

Instead, she said, she would wear socks with different compositions of materials in different parts of the sock.

“I might look for a sock that had some of those synthetic materials that were proven to be better.”

The team also found that higher-priced socks did not test any better than the less-expensive brands. What the sock was made of was the key.

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