Myopia Prevalent in Asians

Myopia affects many people around the world; however, it has shown to affect people of Asian backgrounds at an alarmingly higher rate. In countries such as Singapore, the rate of myopia is estimated at 90%.

Myopia, better-known colloquially as nearsightedness, is a disorder in which images that reach the eye focus in front of the retina instead of directly on it as a normal eye would. This results in an increasingly distorted image the further these images are. This causes a blurred image and a lack of visual detail.

The relationship between Asians and nearsightedness is open to much debate. Although it has not been proven, some experts speculate that its prevalence in the Asian population may have to do with academics and parental pressure to excel. This leads to students spending more time reading, studying, and doing assignments on the computer instead of spending more time outdoors. Genetics has also been mixed in with the debate: myopia has been speculated as being hereditary and can be spread to further generations. Much of the mainstream recent debate however, indicates that the causes of myopia may be a mixture of the two.

Dr. Thomas Aller has spent the last two decades investigating myopia (nearsightedness)

Over the past two decades, Dr. Thomas Aller, a renowned San Bruno optometrist, has studied the phenomenon of Asians and their disposition to myopia. In 2006, Aller completed the world’s first scientifically controlled study of the use of bifocal soft contact lenses on children. In children, he found that the use of bifocal contact lenses can reduce the gradual worsening of myopia by up to 90%. Dr. Aller recommends the following steps in order to reduce the onset of myopia among children and young adults:

Get your eyes examined early and often

“Get early and frequent eye exams,” says Aller. “Nearsightedness is rare at age five, but it usually is found in children as young as eight-years-old. Regular eye exams make it [myopia] easier to detect. The earlier the exams are, the more effective they’ll be.”

A simple test Aller recommends to judge the onset of myopia in a child is to have someone stand about twenty feet away from an oven with a digital clock. If it takes less than twenty feet for a child to clearly read the numbers on the clock, then he may be myopic.

Go outdoors

Doing outdoor activities such as basketball and other sports puts less strain on the eye than reading, video games, or watching television would. This may lead to a smaller likelihood of nearsightedness for children.

“Kids who have spent more time outdoors have been shown to be less nearsighted,” says Aller. “Plus the outdoors is good for kids anyway.”

For people who are already nearsighted, Aller recommends correctable methods such as good-fitting contact lenses or eyeglasses. He strongly recommends bifocal contact lenses, which have been shown to greatly reduce the advancement of myopia in children as well as adults. Another contact lens he recommends is Ortho-K, a type of corneal reshaping contact lens. The Ortho-K lenses are worn overnight and have been shown to reshape the elongated eye that is typical among myopes.

For more information on Dr. Thomas Aller and his studies on myopia, visit Dr. Aller’s website at www.draller.com.