Living Well Magazine

America's Future Vision

Vision is paramount in this day and age; 80% of our sensory perception to the world is through our eyes. There are a hundred times as many nerve fibers devoted to vision than to hearing. In fact 40% of the brain is devoted to what we must see and perceive around us.

We’re experiencing an explosion in refractive errors, especially in nearsightedness. It all starts with children who perform hours of close work without taking a break; they Tweet, spend hours on the computer and smart phones and on other social media. Then as adults they continue the same practices while trying to fit too many activities into a day. Researchers, Dr.Susan Vitale and colleagues from the National Eye Institute reported the incidence of myopia has jumped from 25% to 42% in American adults in the last 30 years. This compared the 1971 to 1972 National Health and Examination Survey to the latest one from 1999 to 2004. The American study shows the highest rate of change in females and Caucasians, although Asians were not specifically evaluated. All levels of myopia increased being greatest in those with moderate and high myopia.

Increases in nearsightedness have been noted around the world especially in Asian countries. Over the past 30 years myopia in Singapore has jumped from 25 to 75% of school children; 80% of male Army recruits are myopic. Men living in rural India have only a 10% chance of becoming nearsighted, whereas, 70% of those living in Singapore are myopic. Taiwan has gone from 80 to 90% myopia of young adults. Sweden, which has always kept excellent statistics, finds that children age 12 have a 50% chance of being myopic increasing to 70% by age 18. Rural societies are largely farsighted which changes dramatically when people move to the cities. For instance, Eskimo children jumped from 0% to 44% when they became urbanized; that was in 1970, so it must be much higher by now.

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