There have been suggestions for quite some years now that the lower rates of shortsightedness (myopia) in Australia, although they relate in part to genetics, may be related in a significant way with the fact that Australian kids tend to spend more time outside than Asian children, especially in South East Asia where there has been an increase in myopia in the last 20 odd years. There is a new report out from China where they gave kids smart watches for a year and collated information about time spent outside and light levels.

Link

>>Conclusions and Relevance In this 1-year prospective cohort study of children with smartwatches, continuous outdoor exposure with at least 15 minutes accompanied with no less than 2000 lux sunlight intensity was associated with less myopic shift. These findings suggest that future outdoor interventions should focus not only on the overall time outdoors but also on the effective outdoor exposure patterns, as a means to effectively prevent myopia in children.<<

buffy said:

There have been suggestions for quite some years now that the lower rates of shortsightedness (myopia) in Australia, although they relate in part to genetics, may be related in a significant way with the fact that Australian kids tend to spend more time outside than Asian children, especially in South East Asia where there has been an increase in myopia in the last 20 odd years. There is a new report out from China where they gave kids smart watches for a year and collated information about time spent outside and light levels.

Link

>>Conclusions and Relevance In this 1-year prospective cohort study of children with smartwatches, continuous outdoor exposure with at least 15 minutes accompanied with no less than 2000 lux sunlight intensity was associated with less myopic shift. These findings suggest that future outdoor interventions should focus not only on the overall time outdoors but also on the effective outdoor exposure patterns, as a means to effectively prevent myopia in children.<<

Interesting

didn’t yous say it was good to be short sighted so reading is no problem with age

SCIENCE said:

didn’t yous say it was good to be short sighted so reading is no problem with age

Yes, I did. But apparently there is a “myopia epidemic” happening. In South East Asia. But we need to worry about it, and work out therapies etc. There is a move to call myopia a disease. And in people with high myopia there is increase risk of some sight threatening developments over a lifetime. But that is not for the majority of low and moderate myopes.

I do not consider myopia a disease. I consider it part of the spectrum from short sighted to long sighted. It’s a leptokurtotic curve, with more long sighted than short sighted people, but never the less it’s just a slightly distorted bell curve. It was a good time for me to retire. When you start to think your profession is going a bit off the deep end on some things.

buffy said:

SCIENCE said:

didn’t yous say it was good to be short sighted so reading is no problem with age

Yes, I did. But apparently there is a “myopia epidemic” happening. In South East Asia. But we need to worry about it, and work out therapies etc. There is a move to call myopia a disease. And in people with high myopia there is increase risk of some sight threatening developments over a lifetime. But that is not for the majority of low and moderate myopes.

I do not consider myopia a disease. I consider it part of the spectrum from short sighted to long sighted. It’s a leptokurtotic curve, with more long sighted than short sighted people, but never the less it’s just a slightly distorted bell curve. It was a good time for me to retire. When you start to think your profession is going a bit off the deep end on some things.

Thanks, as dv says it is interesting enough that we ask:

• How high is myopia before the risk is increased?
• Does long sight increase risk of sight threatening developments too?

SCIENCE said:

buffy said:

SCIENCE said:

didn’t yous say it was good to be short sighted so reading is no problem with age

Yes, I did. But apparently there is a “myopia epidemic” happening. In South East Asia. But we need to worry about it, and work out therapies etc. There is a move to call myopia a disease. And in people with high myopia there is increase risk of some sight threatening developments over a lifetime. But that is not for the majority of low and moderate myopes.

I do not consider myopia a disease. I consider it part of the spectrum from short sighted to long sighted. It’s a leptokurtotic curve, with more long sighted than short sighted people, but never the less it’s just a slightly distorted bell curve. It was a good time for me to retire. When you start to think your profession is going a bit off the deep end on some things.

Thanks, as dv says it is interesting enough that we ask:

• How high is myopia before the risk is increased?
• Does long sight increase risk of sight threatening developments too?
  

The classification for high myopia has been more than 6D for many years, but in the last few years they have been using more than 5D. It does not mean lower levels of myopia don’t have complications, but the risk is lower. I am a moderate myope at around 4D and I’ve had a complication. I saw some high myopes, but not many (It’s not all that common in people of European descent. There are more myopes in the Asian population. And Inuit people too, for some reason I’ve never seen an explanation of) and I can only think of a very few (probably count on one hand) those with serious complications.

Long sighted people are more likely to have childhood onset problems like lazy eyes (amblyopia) and turned eyes (squint). And a slightly higher risk of glaucoma. Although more recently they seem to be blaming myopia for that too.

There is a lot of nuance. And now I’ve been around for a while I keep seeing everything old is new again. And stuff I learnt in my training in the late 1970s keeps popping up as something new. I wonder when we forgot some of this stuff.

thanks

we should probably get our eyes updatechecked