Myopia has grown more common worldwide since the 1970s, Anthony Khawaja of the University of Cambridge noted at the 115th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology -- over 80 percent are nearsighted in some Asian countries -- but Khawaja's and lead researcher Justin Sherwin's analysis of eight studies on outdoor time and myopia, representing a total of 10,400 children and adolescents participating, provided evidence that the amounts of time spent in natural light and gazing towards distant objects, could be keys to reducing nearsightedness in kids, ScienceDaily reported.
The research team found that each extra outdoor hour spent per week reduced the chances of developing myopia about two percent, and they also found that nearsighted children spent less time outdoors, almost four hours fewer on the average, than those with farsightedness or normal vision.
Simply being outdoors appeared to protect eyesight, regardless of specific activities, according to the team, whose study was not designed to identify underlying causes for this relationship.
Two of the analyzed studies also focused on the amount of time spent on "near work" -- studying or playing computer games, for examples -- and found no relationship between such tasks and nearsightedness.
Khawaja concluded,
"Increasing children's outdoor time could be a simple and cost-effective measure with important benefits for their vision and general health. If we want to make clear recommendations, however, we'll need more precise data. Future, prospective studies will help us understand which factors, such as increased use of distance vision, reduced use of near vision, natural ultra violet light exposure or physical activity, are most important."
Khawaja has also begun researching whether increased outdoor time might stop the progression of nearsightedness, citing in his presentation a separate Chinese study of 80 nearsighted children, half assigned to less near work and more outdoor time; after two years those researchers found children in the outdoor group were less nearsighted than the 40 in the control group children who had followed no particular schedule.
In August 2008 the Sidney Myopia Study of 4,000 children found high levels of near work and low levels of outdoor activity were strongly associated with myopia, ScienceDaily reported
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