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Study: Daily light exposure slows axial growth over 18-month period
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Researchers demonstrated that greater light exposure elicits smaller changes in axial length over an 18-month study period, as reported in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.
Read and colleagues measured axial eye growth and light exposure in 101 children (41 myopes and 60 nonmyopes) between 10 and 15 years old. A wrist-worn light sensor recorded mean daily light exposure for each child.
Researchers noted a modest but statistically significant association between greater average daily light exposure and slower axial eye growth.
The mean ± standard deviation increase in axial length (AxL) observed over the 18 months was 0.11 ± 0.15 mm. At baseline, the mean AxL in myopes was 24.46 ± 1.05 mm and 23.24 ± 0.65 mm in nonmyopes.
Mean axial eye growth of 0.19 ± 0.20 mm was found in myopes and 0.05 ± 0.05 mm in nonmyopes, according to researchers.
Examining the longitudinal changes in AxL, researchers found a significant main effect of refractive group and sex, consistent with a significantly smaller baseline AxL in the nonmyopic children compared to the myopes and smaller AxL in girls than in boys.
Myopic children exhibited significantly lower average daily light exposure than nonmyopic children, according to the study.
On average, myopic children spent more time on near work and less time on outdoor activities, although these differences did not meet statistical significance.
For every 1 log unit of increase in average daily light exposure, the axial growth rate decreased by 0.12 mm/y, according to researchers.
Researchers did not find a significant effect of self-reported near work, outdoor activity, average daily physical activity or parental history of myopia observed upon the changes in AxL over the course of the study.
“These findings indicate a role for ambient light exposure in the previously documented association between outdoor activity and myopia and provide evidence to support interventions aimed at increasing daily light exposure in order to slow childhood myopia progression,” the authors concluded. – by Abigail Sutton
Disclosure: The researchers reported no relevant financial disclosures.
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