I have thought about this myself, but I thought that elongation being permanent or difficult to reverse was intuitive. If you stretch a piece of a plastic it st

I have thought about this myself, but I thought that elongation being permanent or difficult to reverse was intuitive. If you stretch a piece of a plastic it stays that way. I believe the prevailing theory is when you focus near, your lenses expand pushing on the aqueous humor, causing expansion of the eyeball. When you focus far, they shrink, but these lenses don't pull the eyeball back in because they aren't connected to the front or back of the eyeball. This is why people with myopia often have increased intraocular pressure. I don't understand how this fits in with the findings in this article though. I have never heard of anyone becoming less nearsighted. And even presbyopia is simply when your lens cannot change anymore, it doesn't actually shrink your eyeballs. It seems like the optical industry is content with making a lot of money constantly prescribing stronger glasses every year or lasik which has significant risks and doesn't stop the elongation. Whoever cracks this problem will make a lot of money. But shrinking eyeballs is probably a very difficult task and easier and very profitable to just fix the symptoms. And most people don't become blind from this so it doesn't seem like a priority.