Myopia treatment 'smart glasses' from Japan to be sold in Asia

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Health-Care/Myopia-correcting-smart-glasses-from-Japan-to-be-sold-in-Asia

by isof4ult • 5 years ago

541 313 5 years ago

asia.nikkei.com

It looks like the article doesn't have any details on how this works, anybody care to speculate on a potential mechanism here?

sedatk• 5 years ago

From the article: It projects an image from the lens of the unit onto the wearer's retina to correct the refractive error that causes nearsightedness. Wearing the device 60 to 90 minutes a day corrects myopia according to the Japanese company.

google2341232• 5 years ago

How does this actually help treat nearsightedness when not wearing it? Does it change the shape of the eye ball?

misterbwong• 5 years ago

More details from the Bloomberg PR:

Kubota Glasses technology works to reduce the increase in axial length associated with myopia by projecting myopically-defocused virtual images generated using micro-LEDS on the peripheral visual field to actively stimulate the retina. Passive stimulation using myopic defocus is already in use in the US with a contact lens, “MiSight^® 1 day” by CooperVision, which is U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved to slow the progression of myopia. This product, which uses multifocal contact lens technology, passively stimulates the entire peripheral retina with light myopically defocused by the non-central power of the contact lens. Kubota Glasses technology leverages nanotechnology in its electronic glasses-based device and seeks to reduce the progression of myopia by actively stimulating the retina for shorter periods while maintaining high-quality central vision and not affecting daily activities.

Bud• 5 years ago

Key words: "reduce the progression". Which means that marketing this as a cure is a complete fraud.

londons_explore2• 5 years ago

I read this as "We stuck a ring of LED's around some glasses based on some flimsy science. The glasses cost $0.50 to make, yet we can sell them for $10k a pair.".

taneq4• 5 years ago

Strip the jargon away and this sounds like it's saying "wear weaker glasses" and the device is just a fancy way to still see normally while having a weaker prescription in your periphery?

Anecdotally, among a bunch of my friends who are (a) nearsighted, and (b) mad about sailing ships, spending a couple of weeks out at sea staring at the horizon will make a significant temporary difference to their myopia.

WORLD_ENDS_SOON• 5 years ago

Completely speculation, but I wonder if it's using the same mechanism explored in the famous upside down goggles experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upside_down_goggles Gizmodo article talking about the effect: https://io9.gizmodo.com/does-your-brain-really-have-the-powe...

Basically, if you wear goggles that distort your vision for long enough, your visual processing adapts and "corrects" for the distortion such that you can function normally. Then if you remove the goggles your brain still tries to correct for the distortion that isn't there (for a while at least), so the world appears distorted without the glasses.

stevebmark10• 5 years ago

It doesn't work, this is terrible reporting.

dangjc2• 5 years ago

This is similar to the “active focus” method: https://endmyopia.org/

I’ve been in this Facebook group for a while and lots of people have great personal anecdata about their improvements. It’s really interesting to see a medical device come out and if they have clinical trials to back it up.

JacobSuperslav• 5 years ago

this method is absolute snake oil. Google around. Most myopia is axial in nature - in layman terms - your eyeball is just too long. No amount of exercises or staring into the sun is going to reduce its length.

fy20• 5 years ago

I've fixed my myopia from -4.25 to -3.25 over the last 5 years (I'm 32). The secret method optometrists don't want you to know, is that I've been staring at a screen just as much and just the same as I've always done.

My point is for some people it can fix itself naturally, so unless studies are double blind, anecdotal claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

f4304• 5 years ago

now if only they had something for astigmatism. There's surprising lack of progress

plussed_reader2• 5 years ago

That's a tough nut to crack as everyones axis to the astigmatism is custom, nevermind the combination of powers to compensate for the actual focal issues.

And all of those details shift over time, too.

f4304• 5 years ago

I wonder if there is a way to "read" how elongated your eyeball is, detect imperfections on the surface level and create a smart glass that adjusts what you see based on these "customizations".

Imagine training the brain to see properly, I doubt it will change in adults however.

Even wearing light sunglasses helps tremendously but because of the socially frowned upon nature of wearing shades indoors and the long term effect of opening up the cornea constantly isn't good, it is a bandaid problem.

I look good too in shades and I can't use astigmatism as an excuse similar to how using one's Asperger syndrome diagnosis as a license to be insensitive cannot expect positive societal feedback.

graeme• 5 years ago

Ugh. I had fairly stable myopia and was content. Recently developed astigmatism in my strong eye and so my overall vision is substantially worse.

Anyone know what can cause sudden onset of astigmatism in adulthood? It appeared a couple years ago and seems stable. Not sure over what period it appeared, probably in 3-12 months.

f4304• 5 years ago

I always thought it was genetics or perhaps excessive screen time is my next guess but I've been told its not possible.

benibela9• 5 years ago

Me too. It is really bad. Myopia is no issue when I work at the computer, since I can move closer, but with astigmatism I cannot read at all without glasses. It has recently increased to 3.5 diopter cylinder according to the measurement device. At those values it is even difficult to buy glasses.

Anyone know what can cause sudden onset of astigmatism in adulthood? It appeared a couple years ago and seems stable. Not sure over what period it appeared, probably in 3-12 months.

If it was unstable, it could be keratokonus

_nrv92• 5 years ago

There's something called SMILE if you're interested in surgery. I recently had it done.

f4304• 5 years ago

can you tell me a bit more about costs, any side effects, and whether you are satisifed?

alliao3• 5 years ago

astigmatism is a nasty beast. Looking back at my prescriptions my astigmatism can jump all over the place, even within 4 months period. I had a holiday in Japan once, and they make you a pair of glasses within an hour, so I got some as a backup despite I've only just got a new pair recently and the astigmatism axis was a complete flip...

kyriakos2• 5 years ago

Pay walled.

mepian• 5 years ago

Private mode circumvents the paywall.

kyriakos2• 5 years ago

Thanks

wpietri3• 5 years ago

I have a lot of questions, but I'd definitely pay if it worked. I've very slowly been getting more nearsighted, but I mainly avoid wearing glasses. My optometrist said that wearing glasses would speed the slide, although I'd eventually end up at the same level of myopia. I'd much rather wear glasses that fix the problem than make it worse.

fatnoah• 5 years ago

I was in the "slowing going nearsighted and avoiding glasses" phase for quite some time and the result was regular "ice-pick" headaches and migraines. Getting glasses fully cured all of that. My prescription also hasn't changed in 10 years, so (for me, at least) glasses have only had a beneficial effect.

dj_mc_merlin2• 5 years ago

I've been nearsighted my entire life and do not wear glasses. I get the headaches after a couple of hours of wearing them. More than likely it's more to do with what you're accustomed with than how good your vision is.

benibela9• 5 years ago

Me too, and then I got astigmatism

jacquesm5• 5 years ago

It's true. I went from pretty good eyesight to +3.25 over a relatively short period of time, but it wasn't an option to wait any longer, I had these crazy headaches and did not realize they were caused by my eyesight being off. The initial glasses were +1.5 and made a world of a difference. 6 months later is was +2.0, another six months and it was at 3.0. That's when I got scared wondering how bad it was going to get but it actually leveled off and took another year or so to go to 3.25 and I've had these for a year now and no difference. I even bought a couple to not have to switch to different models when these wear out (which they inevitably do, they're consumables to me, not something to treat with great care, a couple of hours in the shop and they'll definitely fall at least once on a concrete floor).

Someone• 5 years ago

I don’t know whether you know, but +3.25 isn’t near-sightedness (myopia), but far-sightedness (hyperopia) or presbyopia (Wikipedia: “insufficiency of accommodation associated with the aging of the eye that results in progressively worsening ability to focus clearly on close objects”) I don’t know whether you know, but +3.25 isn’t near-sightedness (myopia), but far-sightedness (hyperopia) or presbyopia (insufficiency of accommodation associated with the aging of the eye that results in progressively worsening ability to focus clearly on close objects)

GrantZvolsky• 5 years ago

My optometrist said that wearing glasses would speed the slide

This is a myth widespread among opticians and optometrists. I have discussed it with those who treated me and not a single one could provide any evidence.

pnutjam4• 5 years ago

Speed the slide = you notice

lvturner• 5 years ago

On several occasions I’ve been the the optician and found my eyesight had gotten better. For me, at least, this myth is evidently false.

pnutjam4• 5 years ago

Glasses don't make it worse, per your optometrist. You just notice where you need to be. I'm about a -9, I wear contacts as much as possible; so I thought that's what you were saying. Don't be afraid to wear glasses.

wpietri3• 5 years ago

My optometrist definitely said that I would not end up with worse vision overall, but that my vision would get worse faster. So per my optometrist, glasses do make it worse by my criteria (but not by hers).

aasasd• 5 years ago

Note that if your eyes have different sight strength, you definitely should use glasses. Otherwise the brain learns that signal from one eye is meh, and stops using it as much—so the eye stops focusing.

treeman793• 5 years ago

I so wish mine would do so. Right eye is a worse prescription and seems tied to some minor brain damage.

Causes intense pain to use both eyes.

Google2342• 5 years ago

High recommend contacts if you aren’t sure about glasses

bilalel• 5 years ago

More to read about this on Bloomberg [0] and BusinessWire [1]

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2020-12-17/kubota-v... [1] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201217005811/en/

nsxwolf• 5 years ago

It's not a great headline. My first reaction was "that's what glasses do".

jonplackett3• 5 years ago

Yeah I had the exact same response.

There needs to be a 'permanently' in there somewhere.

Darmody• 5 years ago

  "Through further clinical trials, it is trying to determine how long the effect lasts after the user wears the device, and how many days in total the user must wear the device to achieve a permanent correction for nearsightedness."

Permanently wouldn't be very accurate either.

dang2• 5 years ago

Ok, we've edited the title above to make it clear that it's a treatment device.

shwestrick• 5 years ago

Some additional information here: https://www.kubotaholdings.co.jp/en/ir/docs/20201216_EN_eSpe...

Assuming this device is actually legit (I'm skeptical...), it would need e.g. FDA approval to be used in the USA, correct?

tyingq2• 5 years ago

There's an interesting paragraph in there:

"myopic defocus is already in use in the US with a contact lens, “MiSight® 1 day” by CooperVision, which is U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved to slow the progression of myopia. This product, which uses multifocal contact lens technology, passively stimulates the entire peripheral retina with light myopically defocused by the non-central power of the contact lens. Kubota Glasses technology leverages nanotechnology in its electronic glasses-based device and seeks to reduce the progression of myopia by actively stimulating the retina for shorter periods while maintaining high-quality central vision and not affecting daily activities."

Which seems to indicate the main beneficiaries will be children, to slow the progression of myopia. As it mentions, there are already multi-focal contact lenses used for that purpose.

Since the contacts don't seem to be marketed at adults, I suspect this will be similar.

outworlder8• 5 years ago

leverages nanotechnology

What's the "nanotechnology" they are using, and how would that relate to the device's function?

I'll see if I can find blockchain and machine learning somewhere in there.

gumby• 5 years ago

Poor choice of words; the headline should read "Myopia treatment 'smart glasses'..."

"Eyeglasses" are considered corrective lenses in US (at least) usage (because they correct the distortion of the body's lens).

dang2• 5 years ago

Ok, we'll use that above. Thanks!

jonplackett3• 5 years ago

Damn my long-sightedness!

ihaveajob• 5 years ago

Reads like snake oil to me. I'd love to learn how this devices reshapes your eye lens when not worn. There are methods out there that people swear by, but I haven't seen a drop of evidence. I'd jump at the opportunity if it worked.

bilegeek3• 5 years ago

There is Orthokeratology, which physically deforms the cornea via a contact lens, and lasts about a day or two. But it isn't ideal, and can have bad outcomes.

npongratz2• 5 years ago

A day or two if you're lucky. If you happen to have corneas like mine, you'll get about 9 hours before suffering a fast decline:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546732

No lasting bad effects for me, at least. I'm still glad I tried it.

rasz• 5 years ago

I remember learning about it while reading about someone doing this to pass 20/20 SFTI test (aka topgun).

Nicholas_C• 5 years ago

I wore ortho-k lenses from about 10 years old into my twenties. I switched to daily disposables as I think they are more convenient but when I was younger and playing more sports the ortho-k lenses were great. There is also some evidence that they can prevent eyesight from deteriorating.

outworlder8• 5 years ago

If this worked I would take a loan if that's what it took.

Most likely snake oil. Even more so since they are calling it "smart", I'm surprised there's no blockchain.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This thing can somehow physically reshape the eyes (or the cornea at least) permanently, with no surgery.

jonnydubowsky• 5 years ago

Let's hope it doesn't pan out like it did for Nathan R. Johnson...

http://whywouldanyonebuythat.blogspot.com/2010/02/opti-grab-....

Clip from Steve Martin's "The Jerk" https://youtu.be/i5jTH89HjTA

holbrad• 5 years ago

Physically reshaping the eye, isn't as crazy as it sounds.

Your eye shape/length isn't set, it can both shorten and lengthen in response to stimulus.

I am by no means claiming this device works, just that changing the shape of the eye is at least theoretically possible without surgery.

" Maturity and Homeostasis of Refractive State Although emmetropization is generally thought of as occurring during early development, homeostatic growth mechanisms need to be at least as precise during maturity if size is to be tightly maintained. Does vision guide eye growth only during a narrow period in development? In tree shrews, there is clear evidence of a period of maximum sensitivity to form deprivation (Siegwart and Norton, 1998). In chicks, however, it appears that susceptibility declines steadily from the earliest period, perhaps being related to the growth rate, with older animals showing consistent but smaller responses to form deprivation (Wallman et al., 1987), even up to 1 year of age (Papastergiou et al., 1998). Adolescent marmosets and rhesus macaques also show decreased, but still significant, form-deprivation myopia Smith et al. 1999, Troilo et al. 2000b. In humans as well, there is evidence of changes in ocular dimensions in young adults associated with the progression of myopia, perhaps related to visual tasks (McBrien and Adams, 1997). Thus, the young adult eye is still subject to visually guided growth."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089662730...

ludwigvan• 5 years ago

Has anyone here given this a try: https://gettingstronger.org/2010/07/improve-eyesight-and-thr...

https://gettingstronger.org/2014/08/myopia-a-modern-yet-reve...

It claims that myopia can be cured, just like muscles can be made stronger in a gym.

antisthenes2• 5 years ago

It's nonsense.

I was recommended this as a child - any improvement was temporary, and at best this will slow down the progression of myopia very slightly, in childhood.

Nothing beats sunlight and outdoor activity in childhood for reducing myopia, but if you already have it as an adult - you're stuck with it.

adkadskhj• 5 years ago

Doesn't this article suggest there's some truth to strengthening the eye to improve Myopia, though?

While the "new glasses" could of course be snake oil - assuming they're not for discussion would suggest that the muscles can be strengthened/corrected and all we're discussing is an implementation detail.

That's assuming these glasses actually work in this fashion, though. .. and that they work, of course.

retrac• 5 years ago

It's making a mountain out of a molehill. Yes, there's some evidence that very rigorous, regular eye exercises can help delay or even slightly reverse myopia. Slightly. If you give yourself a headache for like an hour a day, every day. And the effect goes away when you stop exercising.

This is something that has been studied pretty extensively. If it was actually a cure, it'd have been well-proven by now, and we'd all be doing it.

You really should exercise your eyes once in a while if you're staring at a screen all day, though.

jdtang132• 5 years ago

This is something that has been studied pretty extensively. If it was actually a cure, it'd have been well-proven by now, and we'd all be doing it.

Untrue and faulty reasoning. It may have been studied extensively on biased populations, or the research may not have been funded adequately. Anyways, this is part of the "myopia is purely genetic" zeitgeist which is shoved down all of our throats in the west. Meanwhile, studies from Taiwan, Japan, and Korea show that myopia truly has an environmental component to it, e.g. childhood eyestrain and video games.

One may argue that could be because East Asian genetics are different from those of Europeans. I can't say exactly why, but I will say that the mainstream "myopia can't be cured/prevented" rhetoric has been extremely harmful for approximately 2 billion people on this planet.

einpoklum• 5 years ago

It's making a mountain out of a molehill.

I have a pair of glasses to sell you which can fix that...

ekianjo2• 5 years ago

If it was actually a cure, it'd have been well-proven by now, and we'd all be doing it.

You could say that for everything for which there was no treatment before and for which the problem is now considered solved with modern practice.

yters• 5 years ago

I have bad nearsightedness, and anecdotally if I go without my glasses for awhile, such as when swimming at the beach, my eyesight has improved somewhat by the end of the day. I think it is a combination between using my eye muscles more effectively and learning to better infer what the blobs are.

throw1234651234• 5 years ago

I have been reading about myopia fixes through exercise for years. I see no significant evidence that its possible. I can't find an example of a SINGLE person in history that fixed the issue. E.g. Aldous Huxley never really did, despite writing the book that all current methods are based on.

On the other hand, doing a single-arm chin up seems impossible and takes a decade. Enough funds have not been put into research.

ysw02• 5 years ago

Anecdote: I used to get new glasses/prescriptions every year. Every year my prescriptions would get stronger. Last couple of years I stopped renewing my glasses and whenever I absolutely need to get new glasses, I have the store use my old prescription. For whatever reason, my eye sight stopped getting worse. I think by wearing stronger prescriptions, your eyes adapt to it and you get more and more myopic.

lucb1e4• 5 years ago

Warning to anyone taking the above as medical advice: perhaps it might work for you, but do discuss with your doctor and check that you are not driving vehicles with worsening sight while believing it's fine. By all means try it, but get it checked so at least you have the data to know whether it works for you.

dmitryminkovsky3• 5 years ago

How do you get stores to use your old prescription? I’ve had no luck with that.

lern_too_spel2• 5 years ago

Studies of deliberate undercorrection show a slight acceleration in myopia progression. Myopia progression slows and stops naturally after adolescence, whether you wear the correct prescription lenses or not.

programmertote• 5 years ago

Your experience is similar to mine. I got glasses at the age of 13, but didn't like wearing the glasses, so never did. Both my late father and my sister (since she was about 12 years old) have to wear thick glasses. My sister started out about the same eye power as I did, but she wears her glasses everyday. My sister's glasses got thicker year over year, and finally she got LASIK a couple of years ago. My sister doesn't work with computers whereas I spend ~10-12 hours a day with computers/TV screens (when I use computer, I don't wear glasses and my eye doctor told me that's okay). For me, my eye power stayed about the same and never got stronger glass prescription over the last 25 years or so.

Having said that, I started wearing glasses about a year ago when watching the TV between 10pm-12am (thanks to my wife who likes watching movies and I joined in). Turns out, my eyesight (near-sight) got a bit worse in a year and now I have a slightly thicker glasses. Again, this is all anecdotal and maybe age comes into play here with my eye sight (but the common knowledge--not sure how true that is--is that the nearsightedness gets better as people age, so what I'm experiencing is the opposite).

burmanm• 5 years ago

It's also your age. I kept having stronger and stronger glasses (until -9.5) but then it suddenly stopped and vision stayed at this one point.

This was also what a eye doctor said to me ~20 years ago, although his prediction when it would happen didn't quite match.

andrewzah2• 5 years ago

The same thing happened to me where I got continually stronger prescriptions, but I stabilized anyways at around 18. My optometrist told me that's very common after adolescence.

I really wouldn't recommend using an incorrect prescription. In the US anyways shops won't let you use a prescription older than 1 year.

outworlder8• 5 years ago

That is a trial with N=1

Your eyesight might have stopped getting worse on its own. As is the case for most people (myopia doesn't run away to infinity after all!). Which is why corrective surgery is only indicated after your prescription has been stable for some time.

pessimizer• 5 years ago

You're probably just getting old. Normal people get farsighted as they age. Myopic people stop getting worse, or even improve a little, and start developing astigmatism.

Solvitieg• 5 years ago

Me too.

And to everyone saying "its just age"... well, it doesn't seem that way.

I noticed this pattern and stopped going to the Optometrist for five years. When I finally went again, my myopia was -0.25 worse, so I got new glasses. Then I went again the next year and its -0.25 worse again.

My myopia didn't worsen over a period of five years. Then suddenly worsened over a period of one year.

alliao3• 5 years ago

so I have 2 pairs of glasses, one for clarity at infinity for driving, and another one that's clarity at arms length when I work in the office and staring at monitor all day. I do that because I want my eyes to relax, give it a try!

war10253• 5 years ago

I went pretty deep down this rabbit hole for a while.

I've always been suspicious of eye doctors since every visit they find an excuse to bump you up a notch or two.

Anecdotally, me and my brother had the same prescription in high school. I started refusing to go to the eye doctor. He kept going. I happened to see his contacts prescription maybe six years later. His prescription was now over a diopter stronger than mine. I needed new contacts, so went to an exam about that time. My prescription was still the same, "Well we'd like to bump you up a notch, but you can stay at this level if you want."

Further, I noticed growing up that the kids with the worst eyesight were the ones whose parents had the best insurance and could afford twice per year exams.

Anyway, I think glasses do irreparable harm to vision (particularly during adolescence). I think that will be borne out by research if anyone ever looks into it.

The myopia correction exercises do seem to help, but it's a fickle process. If it was easy it wouldn't be controversial. I would describe my experience as your baseline vision stays roughly the same, but you can learn to focus for short periods of time and improve your acuity by maybe 1 - 2 diopters.

outworlder8• 5 years ago

You know what else does irreparable harm? Failing classes because you can't see!

Most people don't just decide that "hey, today is a good day for me to start wearing glasses, wouldn't it be cool!?"

For young kids, it's usually when they start doing badly in classes or people notice they are squinting. For adults, it's having trouble with things like the DMV exam, caught by routine checkups, or when they notice their peers can see much better than they can.

I could also give you endless anecdotes "proving" the opposite point, that wearing glasses can slow down or stop the progress, but why bother. That's all they are, they are not facts.

dorfsmay2• 5 years ago

Yes, I tried in my 20s with no obvious positive result.

jimmyswimmy• 5 years ago

I was forced to try the referenced Bates method for several years as a child, spending about a half hour a day on it. The experience was not good and the effort would have been much better spent on academics or even sports. After several years my parents changed eye docs, and I got one who would give me real glasses. I remember how awful my mother felt as I tried on the new glasses and exclaimed how amazing it was to be able to see anything at all. Trees have individual leaves, cars have license plates and brands, stores have sales prices posted. It may be possible these exercises work for others, but not for me.

The idea is a lovely one. There is some anecdotal evidence that more time spent outside as a youth reduces the rate of myopia. I don't recall whether the funding was published in science letters or elsewhere but it was an unexpected result of a survey. I see no downside in trying this for my own children, as opposed to my experiment of underpowered glasses and eye exercises. The kids like being out there.

option_greek• 5 years ago

It works (obviously anecdotal so YMMV). I follow a variant as on endmyopia.org and so far shaved off a couple of diopters from my last good prescription. However, it is a slow and multi year process but you do see a diopter reduction each year consistently. What's more worrying though is if the hypothesis as presented on any of these websites is true, then modern myopia epidemic is exacerbated by using myopia glasses themselves which is quite worrying.

geekster777• 5 years ago

I've been doing the method in your second link (tl;dr: buy every pair of glasses between your prescription and 0 in 0.25 diopter increments, and slowly work your way down to 0).

I started at the beginning of quarantine, and it's actually been a wonderful time to try this since I rarely /need/ to look at anything farther away than my laptop screen. I started at a -2.25 diopter prescription in each eye. So for about $120 I got every pair of glasses down to 0.25 diopters, and a Snellen chart to track progress. Today, I'm down to a -1.25 prescription, although I plan on seeing an optometrist to confirm this once it's safe in the world to do so again.

The things I noticed during this experiment:

It takes about a month minimum to drop down a prescription (I measure it as once I can reliably read to the 20/30 line on the Snellen chart).
Given the above, I wear `current prescription + 0.5 diopters` whenever driving to make sure I'm well above the legal limits for driving (which is 20/40 vision)
Going outside and just looking at stuff that's far away has the biggest positive effect on improving vision.
Given 30 seconds of actively focusing, I can see temporary gains to my vision for the next 30 minutes or so
My vision is waaay better in the morning
I can now work on my laptop without needing glasses (still difficult to watch tv, though)
Given the focus on what is and isn't blurry, I've started noticing the insane effect the brightness of a room has on how blurry things are
I'm terrible at tracking data, given that I only have about 10 entries in my very basic excel sheet
This has made me go on walks more often, which is just a net good all around. It feels "productive" to go for a walk rather than boring.
It's very possible that this has only a limited return it can provide, since I've been plateaued at -1.25 for the last 3 months.

blue_box• 5 years ago

Shut up and take my money. This is the smart glasses that the world needs.

Hraefn• 5 years ago

For those interested, there are a couple of treatments available in the U.S. to slow the progression of childhood myopia. MiSight[0] contacts and low-dose atropine[1].

[0] https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr... [1] https://www.aao.org/eyenet/article/how-to-use-low-dose-atrop...

jdtang132• 5 years ago

The "myopia is purely genetic" zeitgeist has been continually shoved down all of our throats in the west. Meanwhile, studies from Taiwan, Japan, and Korea show that myopia truly has an environmental component to it, e.g. childhood eyestrain and video games. It's also undeniable that myopia manifests more in middle class workers than working class, which indicates some sort of systematic environmental component.

Since the article is specifically about Japan and Asian markets, I must add this: One may argue that the discrepancy in mainstream scientific conclusions could simply be due to differences in genetics between East Asians and Europeans. This mainstream "myopia can't be cured/prevented" rhetoric has been extremely harmful for approximately 2 billion people on this planet.

simlevesque• 5 years ago

I have bad myopia (around -5) both my parents have it too and to me it has always been evident that it isn't purely genetic. I think I could willfuly downgrade my vision if I concentrated.

mumblemumble2• 5 years ago

In my family (n=basically_none), it seems that myopia correlates strongly with habits. The most bookish, indoors-y kids ended up in glasses - and the more so, the thicker the glasses - while folks who spent their childhoods running around outside tend to have 20/20 vision.

Assuming such an effect really exists, I expect it would be very difficult to statistically distinguish from straight heredity. Kids' early childhood habits tend to reflect family culture.

teyc• 5 years ago

Not sure if it'll help, there's an older gentleman on Youtube who claims reading with glasses actually makes myopia worse with time, due to the way it affects the shape of the eyeballs. Look up Tod Becker.

buss• 5 years ago

I have hypermyopia (-12.5 left, -13 right) and my sister has 20/15 vision. Same childhood environment as her and I needed glasses before I could even read, let alone before I ever played a video game.

It's well beyond a genetic predisposition, it was a genetic guarantee for me.

frankohn• 5 years ago

The predisposition to myopia is genetic but one becomes myopic due to an environmental factor: the lack of exposure to sunlight. It is because of the lack to regular exposure to sunlight that people who study and spend a lot of time in homes can develop myopia if they are genetically predisposed.

Focusing on nearby objects does not lead to myopia. Doing gymnastics with the eyes has no effect. Likewise, using under-sized glasses has no effect on myopia.

Here a supporting article about Inuit populations developed myopia just in one generation because of changes in lifestyle reducing outdoor activities:

https://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120

Geee• 5 years ago

As a kid, I remember that my myopia disappeared after one summer when I was outdoors a lot. Then it came back soon after returning to school.

throwawayboise2• 5 years ago

There may be some correlation but there must be other factors. Doesn't fit my history. I'm myopic, -6.0 diopter, needed glasses starting in 2nd grade. Spent a lot of time outdoors as a kid (no computers, 3 channels of TV which was targeted at grownups except for Saturday morning). Being inside was boring.

Nearsightedness also runs in the family on my fathers side, but strangely none of my kids need glasses and they all grew up with much more TV and other screen time than I had.

digikata2• 5 years ago

This reminds me of archetypal idyllic images of ancient Greek education where a philosopher is teaching a group of students in an outdoor amphitheater. Maybe we need to redesign our schools to be outdoor, or at least with indoor structures with generous amounts of natural lighting.

scythe• 5 years ago

Daytime sunlight is not the only exposure factor correlated with myopia. Nighttime artificial lighting is also a negative:

https://www.nature.com/articles/20094

There's a review here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135094621...

soylentcola3• 5 years ago

I accept that this isn't anything more than anecdote, but my mother was very myopic. I grew up in the boonies, spent loads of time outdoors, had no video games until I was in high school, and was allowed very little TV time.

I still needed glasses by 2nd grade and finally leveled out somewhere around the -8.50 range in my mid-late 30s. Hasn't really gotten too much worse as I got older, but as a lovely side note, I'm in my early 40s now and am getting the slightest bit of trouble on the other end of the spectrum where I can't always focus on small, close-up things if I have my glasses on. Guess it'll be time for bifocals soon.

bilegeek3• 5 years ago

The factors weren't "childhood eyestrain and video games". The one consistent factor was the amount of bright light exposure in a study[1]; in other words, being indoors, away from bright sunlight, which is correlative to eyestrain and video games, not causative, because people tend to do those things indoors. If you read outdoors in bright light, it's not really worse than just hanging around in bright light.

Couldn't find a non-paywalled PDF, sorry, but here's the original study:

[1]https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Also, it might have changed since then (2012). If there's since been a study refuting this one, let me know, because it's nigh-impossible to find between the glut of citation-free news sites and blog posts, and paywalled journals.

himinlomax3• 5 years ago

The currently favored theory is that it's due to a lack of UV light reaching the eye. It's not (just) video games, it's (also) school and generally being indoors instead of out at midday.

young_unixer• 5 years ago

Since I learned that excess UV radiation burns the retina, I've started always wearing sunglasses outside. Should I stop?

stevebmark10• 5 years ago

There's no such theory, and exposure to light brightness has nothing to do with myopia. Being outdoors causes less close up focus, which slows the progression of myopia.

ekianjo2• 5 years ago

"myopia is purely genetic"

I have never heard that Myopia is purely genetic. Where is that claim even coming from?

coldtea2• 5 years ago

From tons of articles, medical advices, etc. that insist that "you don't develop myopia from reading, monitor work, video games, etc".

They not not say that it's "purely genetic", but that's the impression one gets, that all those lifestyle params don't play any role...

Wikipedia says it's "a mix of genetic and environmnetal factors", and includes all of the above factors I've mentioned. But I've read many times in the past decades articles insisting that those other things don't matter (and presenting it as the medical consensus)...

outworlder8• 5 years ago

myopia truly has an environmental component to it

Very much possible. I only have anecdotal evidence, but if you plotted the amount of time I spent at home starting at a TV versus other kids, you will probably find interesting correlations.

, e.g. childhood eyestrain and video games.

Why single out video games in particular? If there is a problem, the problem is the screen. Or rather, how close it is. It is unlikely to be related to the content.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn about a feedback loop getting disrupted. For many organs in the body, an approximate shape will work just fine, who cares if an organ is slightly off by a few millimeters. Not so for the eyes.

u678u• 5 years ago

BTW there was an interesting article on Myopia yesterday on how Covid lockdowns will harm children's eyesite. https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-and-eyesight-myopia-on-the-ri...

timonoko• 5 years ago

BTW: -2 shortsightness is the optimal. You can see your own hands and what you are doing and eating until the day you die. I happen to be those lucky few. On sunny days the iris is so small I can manage without glasses.

phonebucket• 5 years ago

I'm short-sighted. I'm more worried about blurry traffic than blurry food.

pilsetnieks• 5 years ago

-2 is not that blurry. You may not be able to reliably read a license plate at distance but you'll still see the (mildly blurry) car coming at you.

aaronscott2• 5 years ago

My understanding of the parent's post was that someone with -2 vision may expect roughly perfect vision as their eyes age.

I couldn't find a study with data, but there are anecdotal guides online (for picking reading glasses) which state that by 60 years old, it's estimated that a person would need about +2.25 diopters in correction. So someone who is around -2 diopters may expect to have roughly perfect vision as they get older.

jackcosgrove• 5 years ago

I have slight myopia in one eye and normal vision in the other. I can pass the vision test for driving without correction.

I always thought normal vision in both eyes was the best. Now you're telling me my myopic eye might be an advantage later in life?

dorfsmay2• 5 years ago

Correcting? They mean temporarily cure... If this works, it's fascinating!

One thing I have been wondering for a while, and I thought this what it was when I read the title, is, why can't we have zoom lenses with a camera turned inword to the retina applying autofocus algorithms? As I age, I need a different prescription for every 20 cm I push my laptop back, something like this would be very useful.

Anybody knows what happened to this project https://www.core77.com/posts/12220/brilliant-water-based-eye... ?

gcheong2• 5 years ago

It's not clear what the current status is but this is the website for that project: http://cvdw.org . Last Facebook post was in 2018.

rob74• 5 years ago

This headline is a classic example of "burying the lede". Er... glasses that correct myopia? Haven't those been around for, like, at least 600 years?

JustSomeNobody• 5 years ago

Alas, I'm cursed with mostly astigmatism.

mattjaynes2• 5 years ago

Ask yourself, how much brighter is it outside than inside (assuming a sunny day vs a brightly lit office)?

Before looking into this, I would have guessed 2X or 3X, but would you believe it's actually over 100X!

I bet most people's guess would also be off by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude.

Even outdoors in the shade, it is over 50X brighter than indoors.

(For specific numbers and comparisons, see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6656201/ )

Apparently, our eyes adjust so quickly to the difference that we have a very poor sense of the magnitude of light change between indoors and outdoors.

I bring this up because one of the largest factors in myopia development appears to be outdoor light exposure in childhood.

Genetics are likely a factor too, but light exposure seems to have a huge effect: "The prevalence of myopia in 6- and 7-year-old children of Chinese ethnicity was significantly lower in Sydney (3.3%) than in Singapore (29.1%), while patterns of daily outdoor light exposure showed that children living in Singapore were exposed to significantly less daily outdoor light than Australian children." (from the same study linked above)

The obvious takeaway for parents, schools, and governments: ensure your children have plenty of outdoor playtime. It will greatly reduce instances of myopia (not to mention the benefits from higher Vitamin D levels, exercise, etc).

atotic• 5 years ago

I've read this study a while ago, and I think it helped me correct my son's myopia.

When my 5yo kid's eye check came back with "he'll need glasses next year", we started strict "hour+ outside play daily" policy. At his next checkup, he had normal vision. Dr was surprised.

outworlder8• 5 years ago

I believe that's still under active research. If this is a factor, my money is more on "your eyes will be focusing more at infinity" rather then low light levels.

outworlder8• 5 years ago

I bring this up because one of the largest factors in myopia development appears to be outdoor light exposure in childhood.

I used to live almost on the equator. Before adolescence, I would spent most of my time outdoors. Very stable weather so windows were open most of the day (and night). There was often direct sunlight even indoors. We would go to the beach every weekend. I ended up with -5.00 and -5.25

Maybe this would decrease the prevalence, if you are looking at the entire population. But it's not like you, as an individual, will be immune if you just stay outside.

refactor_master• 5 years ago

I live in the dark North and have always been fond of screens. Being outdoorsy is a much later-acquired taste. My vision at soon 30 is still 20/20.

Probability is a strange beast.

stevebmark10• 5 years ago

That's only correlation, light brightness has nothing to do with myopia. It's more likely from looking at things farther away from the face outside so that there is less light focused on the fovea.

mattjaynes2• 5 years ago

"light brightness has nothing to do with myopia" - that's a big claim and will need some evidence to back it up, especially given the many studies that suggest otherwise.

This is still a topic with many unknowns, but we have to follow the evidence as much as we can. Evidence should always beat data-free guesses.

oehtXRwMkIs2• 5 years ago

Correlation does not imply causation but it does imply having something to do with the other. Your first sentence contradicts itself.

scsilver• 5 years ago

You can only see that far away if the light energy is that abundant.

ChuckMcM• 5 years ago

kind of, kind of not. To the extent that brightness contracts your pupil, and the depth of field available to your eye increases with smaller pupil size[1]. People with focus issues find they can always focus when the light is bright enough (assuming normally functioning pupils).

So there are optical properties that are affected by bright light, and your eyes respond to that. What the mechanism is for affecting overall focus range of your eye? I would agree that is unstated/unknown.

[1] Which, as a science project, is fun to demonstrate that a pin hole camera doesn't need a lens for this reason.

mastazi• 5 years ago

People who have the hobby of photography, might have some intuitive understanding of this brightness difference. If you are shooting with fixed aperture and ISO, your exposure times could easily go from 1/60 indoors to 1/3000 outdoors which is not quite a 100X difference, but close.

c9fc42ad• 5 years ago

This is true, it wasn't until I started photography that I realized how much darker it was inside compared to outside.

Exmoor• 5 years ago

Not just the difference between indoor and outdoor light, but also the incredible variations between a sunny day in the summer and a cloudy day in winter. There's a pretty incredible difference.

AuryGlenz• 5 years ago

It's my job and I still get surprised in the evening at how much the exposure changes when it seems static to my eyes.

hug• 5 years ago

Light perception is logarithmic, not linear, which is why your guess is so far off.

7 'shades' brighter and you're already hitting '100x'.

azernik2• 5 years ago

As are most human senses! Definitely hearing, vision, and smell; possibly also perception of force and weight, though the evidence is conflicting there.

jacobolus• 5 years ago

It is not actually "logarithmic" per se.

At a given level of adaptation the relation between luminance and perceived lightness is closer to a square root.

But over the course of about 30 minutes there are several different kinds of adaptations (some faster than that) which the eye/brain can make to the current light level, which has an effect of shifting that curve up or down by up to several orders of magnitude.

dragonwriter• 5 years ago

Genetics are likely a factor too, but light exposure seems to have a huge effect: "The prevalence of myopia in 6- and 7-year-old children of Chinese ethnicity was significantly lower in Sydney (3.3%) than in Singapore (29.1%), while patterns of daily outdoor light exposure showed that children living in Singapore were exposed to significantly less daily outdoor light than Australian children."

So, it's not even an individual correlation but a population-frequency-correlation between populations in different physical environments, which is so even more likely than an individual correlation to represent an effect other than causation in either direction, such as any other environmental (or population-genetic-distribution) difference.

Waterluvian• 5 years ago

When I tried to inject fake daylight into my basement office, I realised just how "special" daylight is. It comes in from everywhere. Flood fills with so much light as such a broad spectrum.

shagie• 5 years ago

When last I looked, there were some very expensively priced daylight lights - complete with blue sky. CoeLux has a scattered light indoor skylight.

LadyCailin• 5 years ago

You might be interested in this video too. There’s more to it than just the color, sunlight’s rays are (virtually) parallel, because the light source is so far away. https://youtu.be/6bqBsHSwPgw

nicoburns• 5 years ago

Regarding the spectrum, you might be interested in these https://store.waveformlighting.com/collections/led-strips/pr...

eloff2• 5 years ago

I always thought my myopia was caused by computer usage. Reading this it sounds more likely that it was growing up in Calgary, Canada and spending huge amounts of time indoors and in basements.

TwoBit• 5 years ago

Well it is, because the more you are on your computer, the less you are outside.

mrfusion• 5 years ago

I’d wager there’s an effect like this for adults too. I didn’t need glasses until I got my first office job.

bagacrap• 5 years ago

I remember reading a post on here about someone's home office lighting setup which had some insane number of lumens and was equivalent to being outdoors at dusk. That's when I became aware of the huge difference in illumination.

lukewrites2• 5 years ago

Any chance you saved/upvoted that post? I can’t find it but would love to read it.

billforsternz• 5 years ago

I made an appointment with a local dermatologist about some sunburn that never seems to heal up. He's a young German guy living here in New Zealand. After a quick examination: "So! You have solar keratosis! How long have you been wearing the hat?" Me: "Oh 5 years or so". Him: "And how long have you lived here?" Me: "All my life, 60 years". Him: "Just so! It seems all Kiwis have solar keratosis ja?".

In other words, there are downsides to being outside in that 1000 times (maybe 10000 times here) brightness. The really annoying thing is that my eyes were buggered from a young age too, despite all that brightness.

fnord123• 5 years ago

(For specific numbers and comparisons, see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6656201/ )

The study was done in Singapore and Malaysia. It looks like an interesting study to do in different regions of the world. e.g Western Europe where it is notably cloudier than Singapore.

Engineering-MD• 5 years ago

Before you change your internal mental calibration, this of course changes based on latitude and time. The difference between daylight and a cloudy day midwinter in Northern Europe is probably not going to be 100x.

phreeza• 5 years ago

Just as a side note, its not that people are terrible at perceiving brightness, it's just that brightness perception (like loudness) is logarithmic. So if a person says it is 2x brighter outside, and a linear measurement instrument says it is 100x brighter, that is in fact roughly consistent.

BrandoElFollito• 5 years ago

I noticed that when I started to measure the lightning in a room for home automation purposes.

It is really, really difficult to find the right spot that reflects "the light in the room" and then to find a threshold to switch on the lights "at the moment I would have done that".

I constantly hesitate between 30 and 100 lx, it is so dependent on the subjective light outside.

stevebmark10• 5 years ago

This will absolutely not, under any circumstances, "correct" myopia. You can only slow its progression, with techniques like:

- Pupil dilating eye drops

- Wearing corrective lenses as little as possible

- Wearing glasses with fogged edges/rims

- Reducing the time you hold objects close to your face

The major factor behind all of this is to reduce the over focusing of light on your retina and fovea. The more light that focuses back there, the more your eye is told to grow longer.

Every parent should know this and how it works. And so should your ophthalmologist, most of which are clueless.

You can't, in any way, undo this growth once it's happened. This is terrible reporting.

unexpected• 5 years ago

You so sure about that? My myopia has gone from -5.50 to -4.00 over the years.

cupofcoffee• 5 years ago

What did you do?

vasquez• 5 years ago

If you're nearing/above 40 this is likely age related farsightedness (presbyopia) counteracting your myopia.

https://www.nvisioncenters.com/farsightedness/and-age/

midjji3• 5 years ago

"It projects an image from the lens of the unit onto the wearer's retina to correct the refractive error that causes nearsightednes" so regular glasses then...

treeman793• 5 years ago

Neat.

My prescription changes every couple of minutes. But along a predictable curve.

I keep thinking about getting optometrist adjustable lenses hooking it up to motors to automatically shift the lenses. Mechanical is beyond me though.

andai• 5 years ago

I haven't heard about this, could you elaborate?

kazinator2• 5 years ago

Off on a complete tangent here, only remotely related.

Yo, fellow four-eyed geeks.

I noticed that when lying down and looking up in a room with a light source, with my glasses on, if there is a small droplet of water on the lens (say, due to having just cleaned the glasses and not wicked up every last drop), this droplet can bend the light in such a way that when it subsequently hits the cornea and pupa, a perfectly straight, parallel beam of light passes through the vitreous humor right to the retina.

The consequence of this is that all the junk floating in your eye is rendered in "4K clarity" in a circle of light, regardless of whether it is next to the retina, or floating somewhere in the middle.

Imperfections in your cornea or elsewhere are also rendered, making themselves evident.

alliao3• 5 years ago

ok I've always wanted to map it out and keep track of them, I swear they come and go, so going to try this out later! If you can shed more details that'd be awesome! Does the droplet have to be dead centre??

kazinator2• 5 years ago

The droplet doesn't have to be dead centre. Basically you stare past the droplet and see the glint of light in it as a big blurry orb of light. That's the "spotlight", basically.. That's it. If you squint your eyes, and see relatively sharp shadows of your eyelashes impinging on the orb, it's working.

root_axis• 5 years ago

Damn! Thought I was the only person who ever experienced this, it's cool that you decided to post this here. Anyway, I can actually do this with my glasses off as well. Lay on your back and stare up at the light with your eyes nearest to closed as possible but still letting in a little light, it takes some adjusting to get it into focus but you get the full 4k experience just as you describe. Thanks for sharing.

thick3• 5 years ago

Maybe some of you will find this beneficial if you have slight vision issues. It’s anecdotal, I don’t have scientific backing here. It worked for me, and I think it’s harmless to try. What I’m about to describe is what I think is the Active Focus method.

I’ve always had perfect vision but my dominant eye degraded slightly over the years so I looked into how to bring it back to full. No one in family wears glasses or anything like that, although the elderly use reading glasses of course.

Practicing reading on both monitor and in front of a book with the good eye palmed and trying to shift the focus back and forth while gunning for more clarity for a longer period of time, it took me very little to get rid of the issue - I must have practiced probably 30 times of a few minutes each over the span of a few months, so maybe once every 2nd or 3rd day as I felt like it. I went from having a hard time reading the numbers and letters to very carefully observing the edges of fonts rendered by ClearType antialiasing on Windows.

At first the eye muscles got strained from me forcing it to focus, but then it got better. Minor soreness and redness at first is nothing to be concerned about IMHO. I still practice but not as often, since I’ve trained the ability to focus at will which is really what active focus is about from my understanding - intentional focusing with enough speed.

I’m not a big fan of EndMyopia but the subreddit has people claiming they fixed far worse problems than I have (if slight blurryness is even worthy being called a problem).

I highly recommend Todd Becker’s presentation on Active Focus for anyone wanting a breakdown of the approach. Some people seem to have a hard time with being able to finely control where their focal plane is. It gets easier with practice is about all I can say.

The full “method” that Todd Becker and EM recommend is to try to keep distance to whatever that you’re reading so that it’s just slightly out of focus, but I haven’t had that severe of a myopia. From time to time I read sites like HN from slightly further away than usual just to provide a bit of a challenge to the focus practice, but I think long term it probably isn’t healthy to try to read HN at normal font size from across the room.

ComodoHacker• 5 years ago

You are talking about hyperopia (farsightedness), not myopia (nearsightedness) in your case, right?

thick3• 5 years ago

I’m talking about nearsightedness. But in all honesty I don’t know what the underlying causes are as I haven’t been to an optometrist about it. I think my last check up was when I was in grade 6. Horrible, I know. I noticed it a few years ago and it bothered me enough to do some late night googling to see what snake oil I come across, but I decided to give it a try as a “I doubt I’ll permanently injure my eye trying to get it to focus”. I’ve been staring at a computer screen for well over 25 years, almost every day. I think that at this point it’s more of a genetic lottery that I’m not wearing glasses for severe myopia more than anything.

It’s not perfect like it was when I was younger, I don’t know if it’ll ever be to that level of clarity but I did develop the ability to rapidly focus which for me is “good enough.” I don’t always have to force the focusing - relaxing the eye and not blinking also does the trick, but I combine both of them since I think of it as stretching the muscle out slightly, making it more elastic by ping ponging between focal planes a little bit. Either way, as long as I can impress the plebs by being able to read road signs at a distance that they can’t, I’ll be alright.

I wanted to make the original post because, HN being inquisitive into longevity and health research, I’m very surprised that over the years very few people discussed active focus or other “alternative” vision correction methods. I’m sure there must be lots of people who wear vision correction here. I’d rather not, so I decided to try the weird stuff first and see how things go.

emberfiend• 5 years ago

I summarized the EndMyopia/Todd Becker stuff at losetheglasses.org if anyone wants a short, readable version. The method continues to work for me, albeit slowly.

thick3• 5 years ago

Excellent summary. Thank you for this.

One thing I forgot to mention is that when I started, I didn’t even have actual blurriness for the most part (unless it’s really far away). I had double vision along the vertical axis, and I did what Becker recommended to do which is to try to focus on the actual object (in my case mostly text), and ignore the ghosted copy so that two of them can converge. I would then intentionally defocus by looking in front or behind the text, and then try to refocus again. It keeps it slightly interesting/amusing.

There’s way more stuff out there on this topic today then there was when I first started practicing it, but it doesn’t seem to have changed all that much. People are still very skeptical about it and I guess optometrists still don’t talk about it.

dannyw2• 5 years ago

Endmyopia is real. It works, and I’m not a shill. I went from severe myopia to 20/20 vision; although you need to put the effort in (took me 2 years to get to 20/20, but improvements have been steady).

I genuinely believe that optometrists are either evil, or horribly misguided with hubris.

benibela9• 5 years ago

My mother believes that stuff, so I did not have glasses as kid and could not see much

It worked well enough that my myopia did not progress. However, I got bad astigmatism

Optometrists are really bad at measuring anything. Endmyopia probably works best for people who never had myopia, but the optometrists just measured some temporary accommodation as myopia. They always kept measuring my astigmatism as myopia for years. Only now that they have modern wavefront aberrometers, the device could tell them that they have measured the cylinder as 2 diopters too weak

JackPoach• 5 years ago

As a myopic person wearing glasses for 25+ years, I'd like independent verification of these claims. There are/were a number of similar devices that turned out to be a total dud.

AltruisticGap2• 5 years ago

On a related note, I find it super interesting that people across many communities and forums report seeing eye sight improvements from daily use of VR headsets. Though it can take a while from those accounts I read, like average 1 hour a day for a year. In each case these people report not wearing glasses in the headset.

pirisek453• 5 years ago

Interestingly enough, an older comment mentioned a study in the 1980s observed that people in submarines develop myopia:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12064612

so adults (possibly young adults) do get it

Myopia treatment 'smart glasses' from Japan to be sold in Asia

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