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In Asia, short-sightedness is becoming ubiquitous
- Tagbert 4y agoIt would have been better to use “near-sightedness” instead of “short-sightedness”. The first term always means myopia. The second can mean either myopia or personality flaw.
- v8xi 4y agohttps://archive.ph/FrRiG https://archive.ph/FrRiG
- pixelkritzel 4y agoThank you! For the article and the trick.
- baal80spam 4y agoIt's strange but I don't get paywalls on The Economist, I wonder why. I'm using Brave.
- ochicial 4y agoThat is strange, I did have the paywall and I'm using Brave too
- simmerup 4y agoThere’s a similar story with balding rates increasing in Asian countries
- mc32 4y agoHuh? Would be interesting if you have a reference for that as it's not something I had heard of.
- simmerup 4y agoApologies for the daily mail, there's also been other studies on university students. It seems to be a common trend that Asian countries are getting western afflictions along with westernization. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-2987988/Chinese-men-getting-balder-Report-says-combined-bald-patches-three-times-size-London.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-298798...
- vxNsr 4y agoSeems to make sense to me, hair is just dead skin and skin benefits from access to sunlight… so would stand to reason hair would also degrade faster if it loses access to sunlight.
- AussieWog93 4y agoJust FWIW, hair isn't dead skin but a separate substance (mostly keratin and oil, AFAIK)
- kgc 4y agoAlso never heard of this. Source?
- simmerup 4y agoApologies fort he daily mail, there's also been other studies on university students. It seems to be a common trend that Asian countries are getting western afflictions along with westernization. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-2987988/Chinese-men-getting-balder-Report-says-combined-bald-patches-three-times-size-London.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-298798...
- blakesterz 4y agoPretty interesting. The dominant hypothesis now is that exposure to daylight is the main variable. It explains why myopia seems, like diabetes and heart disease, to be what doctors call a “disease of affluence”—more common in rich countries than poor ones—since economic growth brings with it more education, and therefore, for children, more time inside.
- corrral 4y agoExposure to very bright light (even standing under a shade tree on a cloudy day is far brighter than normal indoor lighting) specifically during key years had been nailed down with high confidence as the primary cause of most near-sightedness, last time I looked into this. Not sure if they'd figured out the mechanism, but speculation was that bright light is involved in signaling the eye to stop lengthening at the right time. IOW the cause is, basically, school. In Winter months, kids may hardly see the Sun at all, with very short days and recess often indoors (too cold, too snowy, too wet) especially as schools have seemed to grow more wary of taking kids out in poor weather, over the last few decades. Plus anything else that keeps kids indoors, sure (video games, social media[0]) but school seems to be a lot of it. [0] And actually, the social media factor likely kicks in well after it matters. Ditto video games unless your kid becomes a gaming addict in the 3-7 age range and you just let that happen.
- exceptione 4y agoIf exposure to bright light is the primary cause of most near-sightedness, than not seeing the sun would be beneficial. I don´t get it, typo?
- dan-robertson 4y agoYeah typo. The theory is that eyes change shape over time (I think starting out longsighted) and at some point a hormone is released to stop this changing. It is released when (a) the eyes are typically around the middle of their focal range (ie looking at middle-distance things is done with relaxed eyes) and (b) there is a lot of light. Without the second condition the shape of the eyes will continue to change and then you get myopia.
- libx 4y ago[dead]
- jsnell 4y agoRelated discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31711990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31711990 (I guess Economist must have a theme week on this...)
- itsmemattchung 4y agoReminds me of a memoir titled "house of sticks" written by Ly Tran, who experienced blindness from a very young age. When she escalated the issue to her father, asking for glasses, he denounced them: he was convinced that glasses were a conspiracy made by the government to control citizens.
- 999900000999 4y agoGlasses tend to degrade vision. What if previously it was impossible to afford glasses , so your eyes never got so bad? Then again 2 out of 3 Asians I've dated wore glasses. My first girlfriend and mine's frames touched when we kissed. The 2 were both Americans, so it would point to a generic explanation. Then again a geneticist friend of mine pointed out the egg that made you was actually created inside of your grandmother. So bad nutrition, due to famine perhaps, can easily affect multiple generations. Rather depressing to think about how the grandmothers of most people likely suffered though some form of famine. It's really great to see global poverty decrease to such a level this won't be the case in 100 years.
- Broken_Hippo 4y agoGlasses tend to degrade vision. This seems suspect, and a quick google search disagrees with you. Where did you get this information?
- User23 4y agoIt’s the same principle as using crutches tends to degrade leg strength.
- Broken_Hippo 4y agoHow? It isn't like your eyes are healing or anything. This isn't what we are doing with glasses because your eyes aren't injured. Using glasses is more akin to using crutches when your leg simply will never work - neurological disorders, permanent disability, and so on. The crutches help you get along. Or maybe you aren't using crutches, but instead a brace for drop foot or some other sort of support. What you are referring to is something that will heal - an injury. And crutches are good when you are healing, too - those times you do not want to put weight on a leg. In these cases, you don't want to use crutches too long lest you have atrophy or stiffness. But this isn't like glasses at all: In this case, for eyes, you'd use things like a temporary, protective contact and/or an eye patch (There may be cases for glasses, but I'm a layperson and simply cannot think of any right now)
- DantesKite 4y agoInterestingly enough, scientists have been able to induce myopia in all sorts of animals by making them wear contacts. My suspicion is that staring at objects closely and under dimly lit conditions causes pseusdo-myopia which is later exacerbated by wearing glasses, causing actual axial elongation in the eyeballs through hormesis. Especially since this is what seems to happen in other animals when we dissect them.
- batter 4y agoDoesn't this prove that glasses/lenses ruin your eyesight?
- R0b0t1 4y agoThey do. Not just for me, but for many Americans in some study I found previous, and many people I've talked to. However there is a conflicting Philippine (iirc, or Malay) study that concludes the opposite. Most go with this latter study, though both are likely correct, myself having experienced the former. Having explained this to my optometrists they will take me seriously and give me most any prescription I want, though unfortunately I don't exactly know what to do. I just make sure I have dedicated outdoor glasses and limit screen time with them. I avoided wearing contacts for a while due to this but also other concerns. I think this may have limited my romantic success somewhat, at least at the time. In retrospect contacts with readers may have been the better option. I keep holding out for LASIK but don't know how much longer I should.
- yourapostasy 4y ago> I keep holding out for LASIK but don't know how much longer I should. I think the Holy Grail should be eye surgery that is a permanent fix. Current options wear off with age (and not that many decades at that), and then you are back to corrective lenses. There are usually very few who can qualify for another surgery later in life...and then it wears off again anyways. It's a consumable elective surgery that consumes the benefit and the body, so in my opinion it is a net loss over the long haul.
- eric4smith 4y agoAnecdotal evidence (lived in Vietnam for a year). I was astonished at the number of people wearing glasses in the country. Especially women. At first I thought it was some kind of fashion statement, but it seemed to be prescription lenses for the most part. I’m in no way saying that the article explains any of this - it’s just an observation.
- sytelus 4y agoWhat does folks think about CRT as treatment for myopia? They are basically hard lenses that you only wear during night and stay glasses-free during day time. My understanding is that myopia doesn't go away but also doesn't get worse. https://www.paragonvision.com/crt-lenses/ https://www.paragonvision.com/crt-lenses/
- tcoff91 4y agoThat looks fascinating. I've never heard of this.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoOrthokeratology/Ortho-K is the usual term.
- the_d3f4ult 4y agoOrthokeratology works! It just carries the risk that comes with contacts. https://www.aao.org/eye-health/glasses-contacts/what-is-orthokeratology https://www.aao.org/eye-health/glasses-contacts/what-is-orth...
- chrischen 4y agoThe myopic people I know can read the micro print on US currency.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoIf they are myopic (near sighted), they should be able to read things that are near, like the printed characters on money.
- AngryData 4y agoA lot of people seem to over look the fact that being nearsided or farsided is a change in focal length, not a straight degridation of vision. Someone with "perfect" 20/20 vision can't see as far as many far sided people, and can't see as small and fine details as someone nearsided. Before the invention of lenses both could be pretty valuable traits, but of course weren't super common and harder to identify at the time too.
- throwawayarnty 4y agoAs an anecdote, in some modern Asian cities, you can live your life entirely indoors. You live in a small apartment above a large shopping mall and connected to the metro. School is indoors, book learning is prioritised over outdoor physical activity. Kids would spend their entire childhoods indoors. No wonder myopia is so prevalent.
- m463 4y agoI thought it was vitamin D - not mentioned anywhere in the article.
- MarquesMa 4y agoAnecdote: I live in Asia, and when I was in middle school, AFAIR there were only 3 people (out of 40-ish) don't wear glasses including me. Parents nowadays blame screens for short-sightedness, but the truth is back then my classmates are almost all doing reading and writing all the time, and nobody was using screens (Symbian Nokia only took off years later). It's only me and the other two boys who spend all the time and money on online video games - the other two guys were almost score zero in every single exam.
- jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 4y ago> Parents nowadays blame screens for short-sightedness, but the truth is back then my classmates are almost all doing reading and writing all the time, and nobody was using screens (Symbian Nokia only took off years later). Classic (i.e. in paper) reading/writing is much worse than screens. > It's only me and the other two boys who spend all the time and money on online video games the most important factor, AFAIK, is "outside time", i.e. the amount of "medium/far distance looking" that you do every day. A lack of it has been proven to cause myopia. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34142457/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34142457/
- Markoff 4y agoSitting all day at school staring at books and notebooks, memorizing bunch of useless stuff and then doing same thing without any outdoor activity (with focusing eyes at longer distance) with more and more population living in urban setting, I'm shocked!
- Namari 4y agoI read an article a while ago that suggested people in cities had a worst eye sights than people on the country because of the buildings and not proper distance your eye could adapt and train itself. I guess it makes sense considering there are more and more skyscrapper in Asia.