An eye drop a day could keep myopia at bay — at least temporarily.
Using nightly eye drops with 0.05 percent atropine, a medication that relaxes the eye muscle responsible for focusing vision, may delay myopia onset in children, researchers report February 14 in JAMA.
Myopia, also called nearsightedness, is an irreversible condition in which the eyeball grows too long front to back, causing blurred distant vision. It typically begins in childhood, and the earlier it starts, the worse eye health can become later in life. Elongated eyes increase the risk for ocular complications including cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration.
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The prevalence of myopia has risen rapidly over the last few decades. About one-fourth of the global population currently has the condition. It is expected to affect half of people worldwide by 2050.
Genetics plays a large role in the condition. A 2020 study found that myopia risk is more than 10 times as high in children of two highly myopic parents as in children of nonmyopic parents, says ophthalmologist Jason Yam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
But he and other scientists speculate that environmental factors such as less time outdoors and more intensive education are causing the recent boom (SN: 1/24/13). “It’s happening too quickly to be a purely genetic or inherited issue,” says optometrist Kathryn Saunders of Ulster University in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, who was not involved in the new study.
Low-dose atropine eye drops are already used to slow myopia progression in several countries in Asia. Yam and colleagues wanted to see if the medication could also delay myopia onset.
The team recruited nonmyopic children ages 4 through 9 who…
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