Hacker News Reader

Comment by nbeleski | Hacker News Reader

I remember recently reading about the myopia increase in China and it was largely attributed to children staying much more inside, out of the sunlight, causing the eye to under-develop iirc.

I wonder how much these are correlated.

View on HN

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/02/05/3837653...

There was a study that followed Chinese kids who stayed in China vs Chinese kids who moved to Australia. There was a marked difference.

Not sure if its about sunlight or near/far focus though.

They can test this if they tried getting students to try studying outside under natural lighting for a while. Though in China that may be impractical depending on the city.

They tested having students study in a sunlit classroom. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5536284/

> Not sure if its about sunlight or near/far focus though.

I have seen some suggestion that it is a combination of both. Either is plausible though.

Myopia is actually caused by your eye being "too long", and means the lens focuses light in the middle of your eye, rather than on the retina. It seems that sunlight ceases the development of your eye, rather than encouraging it.

Perhaps we evolved to "make use" of UV light to halt our eyes growth.

I thought it was caused by a shortage of dopamine caused by a reduction in sun exposure.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23434455

I read that it isn't a sunlight issue, but an overall brightness issue. If that is true, reading on a bright screen might be better than reading a book.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com