[HN Gopher] A myopia epidemic is sweeping the globe
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A myopia epidemic is sweeping the globe
Author : rntn
Score : 116 points
Date : 2024-05-29 14:20 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| codemac wrote:
| Take myopia into your own hands, is my best suggestion.
| Communities/movements like endmyopia (and many other forums) help
| understand what you can do.
|
| Unfortunately I haven't found an easy way to keep up with the
| exercises that really improve things. If anyone has a way to make
| them easier to accidentally do, would love to know.
| mathematicaster wrote:
| woah, what kind of sorcery is this?!
| hooverd wrote:
| how does that work? ophthalmologists would say that it's
| impossible, but it feels like most physicians are probably
| 10-20 years behind the bleeding edge...
| wafflemaker wrote:
| Safeeyes is a timer for Linux that every 15 min tells you to
| perform a simple eye exercise.
|
| (I'm using 10m intervals and slightly longer exercise time and
| my eyes are better the more I spend in front of PC working -
| program doesn't stop movies and games).
|
| Doesn't help with astigmatism tho, bugger :\
|
| There is a mac alternative called Eye Leo
|
| If anyone has a Windows version, pls post it. I'd love to get
| my mom on that.
| hdlothia wrote:
| I thought the Taiwan study showed this didn't really do much.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Isn't this the Bates method, a pseudoscientific snake oil cure
| that roped in Aldous Huxley?
| codemac wrote:
| No, the endmyopia stuff specifically rejects the bates
| methods (which include staring at the sun?? "palming"??).
|
| Mostly it focuses on learning to focus at the edge of what
| you currently can at a distance, and then as you improve
| getting lighter and lighter prescriptions. I got as far as
| -1.5 better, but now sit at around -1 better. Also ensuring
| lots of super bright outdoor environments, and focusing at a
| distance regularly.
|
| Whether it's a cure or studied well, I dunno. I just
| encourage folks to try it out if it helps them. I have an
| astigmatism as well, and I haven't seen any improvement
| there. So definitely not a panacea.
| localhost3000 wrote:
| My eyesight deteriorated significantly during 2020-2022 to the
| point where I could no longer legally drive without glasses (I
| had been 20/20 or better my entire life). I bit the bullet in
| 2023 and had LASIK, which brought me back to the baseline I'd
| been used to for 35+ years. Age definitely played a part, but the
| speed of decline was really wild to experience and I attribute at
| least some of that to my lifestyle and work changes during covid
| (working 12+ hours per day from a small bedroom in San
| Francisco). LASIK is amazing, for anyone who is considering it.
| cityofdelusion wrote:
| LASIK is amazing when it's no side effects. I'm needing to
| repair my corneas about 7 years post LASIK through stem cell
| therapy. My eye surgeon told me that LASIK severs an incredible
| amount of nerve endings and many eyes basically stop producing
| tears. The surface of the cornea then slowly erodes away. There
| are alternative procedures that don't destroy as many nerves. I
| wasn't aware of any of this before I went under the knife, wish
| I did.
| aeternum wrote:
| If you had to do it over again, which procedure would you
| choose, or would you skip it altogether due to the potential
| risk?
| cko wrote:
| Alternatives like implantable contact lenses? I hesitated
| because something with cataracts and them needing replacement
| every ten years.
|
| My eyes are -10.5 each and my biggest risk is retinal
| detachment.
| djtango wrote:
| Is this also true for PRK?
| citruscomputing wrote:
| This is a fascinating article. We know that we need to get kids
| outside more, but aren't able to prioritize that (except in
| Taiwan). Instead we're trying to find ways that let us keep using
| classrooms and screens the same way. I'm very interested in the
| increased indoor light therapy (for my own use). I would really
| like for it to be as bright indoors as it is outdoors, matching
| the spectrum of the sun, without being horrifically expensive.
| bozhark wrote:
| Mirrors
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| A few years ago I heard about a method of using bundles of
| fiberoptic cable to "pipe" sunlight from a rooftop into rooms.
| My impression is that it's cheap as hell but impractical.
|
| I can't find the article, but this seems to refer to the same
| idea: https://www.quora.com/Can-fiber-optic-cables-be-used-to-
| carr...
| FourHand451 wrote:
| You can buy "skylights" that are essentially internally
| mirrored tubes that accomplish essentially the same thing. I
| don't believe they're super cheap right now, but I imagine
| they could be if they became more widely used.
|
| I know someone who installed one in their bathroom and have
| been surprised at how well it works.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| As a building science scholar, I do not recommend skylights
| or solar tunnels, as they increase the likelihood of roof
| leaks in the future (as any roof penetration does). Also
| impairs thermal management due to lack of insulation
| between the conditioned space and the exterior.
|
| I installed a Velux skylight on one of my previous remodels
| (replacing an existing low quality skylight), and I still
| regret it versus decking over the void and deleting the
| tunnel.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| I'm currently renting. But i just want to add that the
| skylight in my house is the single best thing about it.
| I'm in a location which is pretty well shaded on all
| sides of my house. The windows that i do have are
| relatively small and do not let in all that much light.
| My house is permanently dim, great for sleeping, terrible
| for starting work in the morning.
|
| In this scenario, the skylight in my bathroom while i do
| the morning ready is a godsend. Are there other better
| solutions? I'm sure there are, but is the prevalence of
| issues with properly installing skylights much larger
| than the prevalence of issues with windows?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Would a faux skylight led panel serve this purpose?
| Windows occasionally must withstand driving rain, a roof
| must withstand falling rain (on whatever cadence your
| climate dictates, Florida vs California are wildly
| different environments for example). Broad strokes, water
| is the enemy and you're attempting to avoid intrusion
| whenever possible.
| alright2565 wrote:
| This is a rabbit hole :)
|
| In short, no, unless you have tens-of-thousands[1][2] to
| spend on this panel. Rays of sunlight are parallel, an
| effect that very difficult to emulate.
|
| There are folks who have developed DIY versions, with
| impressive results[3], but in that case you're trading
| off way more effort, potentially requiring maintenance,
| and a lot more space required.
|
| [1]: https://www.coelux.com/en/home-page/index [2]:
| https://hometronics.com/about-us/press/item/coelux-
| the-40000... [3]:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bqBsHSwPgw
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I'm talking a $100 LED panel from Home Depot, not a full
| replacement to create a virtual skylight. Is it the
| appearance of sky or just the light? The light is easy,
| seeing sky (real or virtual) is hard.
|
| Example:
| https://www.homedepot.com/p/JONATHAN-Y-2-ft-x-4-ft-
| Skylight-...
| mrec wrote:
| Yes, I encountered one for the first time in the bathroom
| of a holiday let and, having no idea what it was, got very
| confused as to how I was supposed to turn it off.
| Fortunately we had an experimental nuclear physicist in the
| party who was able to explain that turning the light off
| would actually be a very bad idea.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube
| aeternum wrote:
| Is it now known that light is the primary mechanism?
|
| It's crazy that we still don't know for certain. Being outdoors
| also often means just looking at things that are further away
| as well as more eye movement.
| pjerem wrote:
| Yeah, IIRC, it was in Taiwan or maybe Singapore that they
| started to see a reverse in the myopia trend in nothing less
| than one year after having mandated full days outside in
| school.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| But that doesn't have to be the light. That could be having
| to focus on further away objects.
| aatd86 wrote:
| Probably both equally and correlated.
|
| Myopia gets worse in poor lighting conditions.
|
| Look at those poor moles. :o)
| theshackleford wrote:
| I spent the majority of my life outdoors until my mid 20's
| and have quite bad myopia. So perhaps helpful at a
| population level, but not a magic fix for everyone.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| Go outside and touch grass every day. Go for a walk if you can.
| It will improve your mental and physical health, and can even
| help you solve problems. If it also keeps your eyes healthy, that
| is a bonus.
| choeger wrote:
| Interestingly, when I switched to HO during Corona, I put my
| glasses away as I was working on a notebook (sometimes even
| outside). My eyesight has improved markedly over these last
| years. I still need glasses gut the effect is definitely
| unexpected for my optometrist. I even joked that he might not see
| me ever again if this trend continues.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I'm nearsighted, and as I get older, I've started taking my
| glasses off more and more when I work on the computer.
|
| But it's not my eyes getting "better" due to anything I'm doing
| - from what I recall, people naturally tend to get more long-
| sighted as they age. So it's just counter-acting my near-
| sightedness.
| swsieber wrote:
| Does HO stand for home office in this case?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> This uniformity of focus is what tells the eye to stop
| growing, contends Ian Flitcroft, a paediatric ophthalmologist at
| the Centre for Eye Research Ireland in Dublin. "An effective stop
| signal is where the whole retina is seeing a clear image," he
| says.
|
| Driving. Driving cars is one of those rare activities where your
| eyes are constantly refocusing on objects at radically different
| distances, often several times per second. I would be very
| interested in a study tracking myopia in truckers. Imho, the end
| of human-controlled cars will result in a profound uptick in
| myopia.
| xxpor wrote:
| From this small, recent study in India, it looks like Hyperopia
| was more common (slightly) than Myopia:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9359264/
| ralph84 wrote:
| We started ortho-k for my son at age 9 when he was -1.00 in both
| eyes. It's been successful so far in stopping progression.
| guruparan18 wrote:
| Interesting. Can you please expand more on "ortho-k"? Where can
| I read more about it?
| Nicholas_C wrote:
| I did ortho-k as a child until my mid 20s or so and my eyesight
| is significantly better than my siblings (-1/-2 vs -5 or so)
| who didn't have it. My eyesight has stabilized and I wear
| regular contacts when I need to. The product is incredible
| although uncomfortable to sleep in and expensive. My left eye
| is worse than my right because I lost a lens and didn't replace
| it for a few years.
| nijuashi wrote:
| Why not make lightbulbs that produce the 350-400nm wavelength to
| stimulate/prevent eye elongation? I'm sure companies like Philips
| would love to sell you therapeutic LED bulbs at premium.
| vundercind wrote:
| It's probably the brightness, too. Outdoors during the day
| under a big tree is brighter than basically any indoor lighting
| you see outside a movie set.
| krenzo wrote:
| There's a husband and wife team of optical scientists who have
| been studying myopia and theorize that high contrast across the
| retina signals the eye to elongate which leads to myopia. "Their
| big breakthrough in understanding myopia occurred in 2008 when
| they studied a particular group of people who had a genetic form
| of myopia that's very severe. They discovered a gene mutation
| that was causing the myopia." As a result, they patented glasses
| that blur your peripheral vision, and a trial has shown them to
| be more than 50% effective at reducing myopia.
|
| https://newsroom.uw.edu/news-releases/glasses-stop-myopia-ar...
|
| https://bjo.bmj.com/content/bjophthalmol/107/11/1709.full.pd...
|
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US11493781B2/
| aredox wrote:
| So, to avoid having a blurry vision and having to wear glasses,
| their solution is to wear glasses that blur your vision?
|
| That's not a dig at them; more like life having a laugh at us.
| skeaker wrote:
| I imagine it's like wearing a cast. To fix your broken arm
| that can't be used, you need to wear a cast that prevents
| your arm from being used.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Why is it that no sort of eye exercise can encourage a reversal
| of myopia?
|
| Most of the research I see is on preventing or slowing down the
| progression of myopia.
| gregwebs wrote:
| There are exercises that have worked for some people to reverse
| myopia.
|
| https://www.losetheglasses.org/ https://endmyopia.org/
| ChrisNorstrom wrote:
| It's been ~10 years since I reversed my myopia and I'm surprised
| that it's still a mystery to the medical community. Mine started
| around 2014 I worked at a law firm and was constantly looking for
| files up close all day every day. My distant vision got VERY
| blurry and it freaked me out. It stayed like that for about 1
| year. I just thought it was my "time" because a lot of people
| around me had glasses. I went to Clarkson Eyecare for and they
| gave me a prescription for long distance glasses. My gut didn't
| trust it. So I read a bunch of (what was at the time) conspiracy
| theories on what caused myopia.
|
| The websites explained: (1) Do NOT to use distance glasses
| because they actually elongate the eye even more over time and
| you'll have to get more and more powerful glasses as the years go
| by. (2)Get lots of UV sunlight without sunglasses so the eye can
| "regenerate". (3) Myopia is caused by looking at things very
| upclose for long periods of time and the eye muscle that focuses
| the eye to look that upclose over time gets "stuck that way" and
| trains the eye to elongate.
|
| To stop and reverse moderate or beginning stage Myopia you need
| to wear 1x to 2x magnification glasses anytime you are doing
| upclose work. This way your eye muscle doesn't activate to focus
| the eye on the extremely upclose object. Get lots of outdoor time
| to relax the muscle. Move computer monitors back, avoid gaming or
| reading on your phone. Move objects away from your face, give it
| more space. When you are on the computer, wear the 1-2x
| magnifying readers.
|
| After 1 year my myopia went away. The distance is crisp and
| sharp. This began my distrust of the medical community. Why
| didn't they tell me this was a treatment option?
| pdog wrote:
| _> Getting kids to go outdoors is a tough sell._
|
| The problem isn't the kids. It's the adults.
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