Nearsightedness Increasing in U.S.

It looks like nearsightedness is on the rise in the United States.

Researchers tapped into a wide-ranging health survey to rate vision in the population in the early 1970s and roughly 30 years later. They compared eyesight information for more than 4,400 people tested in 1971 and 1972 with data from another set of 8,300 people tested from 1999 to 2004.

sciencenewsThis broad survey showed that 25 percent of those examined in the early 1970s were deemed to be nearsighted, compared with 42 percent examined three decades later, the researchers report in the December Archives of Ophthalmology. That’s an increase of 66 percent.

Myopia severity also increased, with moderate nearsightedness doubling between the two time periods and severe cases, although uncommon, also rising sharply. Mild myopia cases increased slightly, from about 13 percent to 18 percent. This group included some people who did not need corrective lenses, says study coauthor Susan Vitale, an epidemiologist at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Among blacks, the overall myopia rate was lower than in whites but still jumped from 13 to 34 percent over the three-decade span.  Read Article

By Nathan Seppa