The science magazine/journal Nature has an interesting article this week on myopia, aka near-sightedness. Myopia is on the rise among children worldwide, and is reaching epidemic levels in some Asian regions: in 1955, 10-20% of the Chinese population was short-sighted, and today up to 90% of teenagers and young adults are. This has led to an increase in research as to what is driving it. Many efforts have shown there is a genetic component to it, and nearly 100 different genetic markers have been found that correlate with myopia. But that can’t be the whole story; evolution doesn’t move fast enough to account for the rapid ascent of myopia rates. There must be an environmental factor, and a strong one at that.
Continue reading ‘Myopia: more environmental, less genetic’