Myopia is an increasingly common problem. Modern life seems to increase the risk of developing vision problems, especially for children and adolescents, and the spread of well-being, formal education and Western lifestyle even in previously less developed areas of the globe is destined to drastically increase the prevalence of myopia on the planet: according to research just published in Bmj Ophthalmology, currently one child or adolescent in three in the world suffers from it, and the problem could affect almost 40 percent of minors by 2050.
Myopia gets worse with age
Myopia is a vision disorder that makes it difficult to see distant objects clearly. It typically begins in childhood and worsens with age. It is mainly caused by genetic factors, which in one way or another compromise the eye’s ability to focus images on the retina. But it is known that some environmental factors and habits typical of developed societies can also contribute: years spent studying, the use of devices such as smartphones and tablets, especially in low-light conditions, diet, and excessive time spent indoors.
What causes myopia
For all these reasons, the prevalence of myopia has been increasing for several decades. However, there have been no truly accurate estimates of how common the problem is in different areas of the world, and how much the number of myopic people has actually increased over the last few decades. A new study, conducted by a team of pediatricians, epidemiologists, and ophthalmologists at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, fills this void.
The research analyzed and summarized the results of the main studies on the topic published by the scientific community, thus obtaining reliable estimates on the prevalence of the disorder in the decades from 1990 to 2023. In total, 276 studies were included, involving almost five and a half million children and two million cases of myopia, in 50 countries across all continents.
The results reveal that in the thirty-year period analyzed, the average prevalence of myopia has tripled, going from 24 percent in 1990 to 25 percent in 2001, then skyrocketing to 30 percent between 2011 and 2019, and finally to 36 percent in 2023. The most affected minors today remain adolescents, among whom in the years of the pandemic, 2020-2023, the prevalence of myopia reached 54 percent globally. But young children are the ones who have seen the greatest increases in prevalence in the thirty-year period studied, with the problem growing twice as fast as adolescents.
Risk factors
The risk factors most associated with myopia were found to be the country of residence (the greatest increases were recorded in Asia), living in urban areas, gender (it is more common among women), being a teenager and education level (the probability of being myopic increases among those attending high school).
Using the growth trends that emerged from the research, its authors then estimated what impact myopia could have in the future, arriving at a prevalence of 40 percent by 2050 (in some areas of Asia it could even reach 69 percent), for a total of 740 million cases in the world.
The prevalence of myopia is being pushed up by the spread of well-being and its vices (but not only that, since studying, certainly a desirable habit, seems to be one of the main risk factors), especially in some areas of Asia that are in fact driving the rise, and by the excessive use of digital devices, a problem that according to the authors of the study could explain the surge in cases of myopia that emerged during the lockdowns.