Professor Brien Holden said recent research had found that controlling myopia by 50 per cent would reduce the number of myopes over -5.00 dioptres by 89 per cent.
He said an integrated application of strategies, including spectacle and contact lenses, medication, food supplements and lifestyle changes, is currently the most effective.
Professor Earl Smith III, Chief Health Officer at the University of Houston, in the United States, who first proposed the theory of peripheral hyperopia driving myopic growth, said researchers were determining key factors that may be influential in reducing myopia.
He said it had been established that outdoor activities have a strong protective effect against myopia, but added there are a complex range of factors, including differences in ambient light levels, spectral composition of light and dioptric topographies between indoor and outdoor scenes, that may be influential in varying degrees. He also discussed the role near work may play.
A ‘myopia institute’, a virtual organisation involving leaders in myopia is being estabished to advocate, increase awareness and undertake research into evidence-based strategies for reducing vision impairment and blindness caused by myopia.
