Fenris wrote:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/288989.php

Lower-income students in China found to have better vision than

middle-

class peers
Last updated: Today at 3am PST

In one of the largest population-based studies ever conducted on nearsightedness in children, researchers have discovered that

lower-

income students in China have better vision than their middle-class

counterparts. Data show that nearsightedness, also called myopia,

is

twice as prevalent in the middle-income province of Shaanxi

compared to

the poorer neighboring province of Gansu. The study was published

online

in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of

Ophthalmology.

In certain developed parts of East Asia, nearsightedness is
skyrocketing, with the prevalence of myopia now at an estimated 80

to 90

percent of the population.1 In areas of the world where families

cannot

afford eyeglasses, poor vision from nearsightedness is a serious
disability that can affect a person's ability to learn and work.
Globally, 13 million children worldwide - about half of them in

China -

are visually impaired because of poor sight not corrected by

glasses or

other means, according to the World Health Organization. With those

factors in mind, research teams have been scrambling to find an

answer

to the Asian "school myopia" crisis.

To manage this public health issue, multiple Chinese government

agencies

and universities, together with experts from Stanford University,

have

undertaken several large studies on childhood myopia. In 2012, they

examined vision in nearly 20,000 fourth- and fifth-grade students:

9,489

students in Shaanxi, a middle-income province, and 10,137 students

in

Gansu, the second poorest province in China. The findings include

the

following:

The prevalence of clinically significant myopia2 in the

middle-

income province of Shaanxi is almost 23 percent, nearly twice that

of

the lower-income province of Gansu, which has a 12.7 percent

prevalence

rate of myopia.
Living in the middle-class area was associated with a 69

percent

increased risk for nearsightedness, even after adjusting for other

risk

factors, such as time spent reading, outdoor activity and whether

the

student's parents wore glasses.
Higher math scores were associated with increased myopia in all

children.
Nearsightedness was less prevalent in males overall.

The research team also looked at whether the use of blackboards, as

opposed to textbooks, played a role in staving off myopia. Students

in

the lower-income area rely more on blackboards to learn in the

classroom

as they may have difficulty affording books, while students in the

middle-income areas used blackboards less often. Researchers found

that

using blackboards had a "protective effect" against

nearsightedness when

examined as a variable alone, possibly because blackboards do not
require the kind of close-up focusing that may increase myopia.

However,

when adjusting for other factors, they found no statistically
significant differences between lower-income and middle-class

students

that might explain higher myopia prevalence in richer areas.

"We're still on the hunt for a plausible explanation and think

the

results merit more study into whether using blackboards versus

books may

be partially responsible for protecting eyes against

nearsightedness,

and what other factors may play a role," said the project's

lead

investigator Professor Nathan Congdon, M.D., MPH, of the Zhongshan

Ophthalmic Center at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.

"What's

important is that we figure out how lower-income Chinese students

have

avoided nearsightedness so we can use those same strategies to

prevent

more childhood myopia cases across Asia and perhaps even the

world."

Previous studies have found that people who had higher levels of
education and years spent in school were more likely to be

nearsighted.3

Many researchers also postulate that exposure to certain kinds of

light,

particularly indoor versus outdoor light, may be responsible for

the

uptick in myopia. Recent studies of children and young adults in

Denmark

and across Asia show that more time outdoors and exposure to

daylight is

associated with less nearsightedness.4

For more information on myopia, visit the American Academy of Ophthalmology's public education website www.geteyesmart.org.

--
Fenris

RSPCA-Animadversion
http://rspca-animadversion.org.uk

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Well I agree with this finding.

I spent a lot of my time using videogames and the computer in contrast
to my Chinese counter part who is under the age of 10. So it is
obvious that people not playing "Gameboy" or have access to
electricity would become blinder faster. Another factor is use of
lights and natural lighting, or what they considered low/middle class
income rates. I also had the problem of staying inside and not
exercising because the area had no yard and my mother was afraid of
everything out-doors.


This is a response to the post seen at: http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=325953082#325953082

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