Why is modern eyesight so bad? - Is the eye care industry a scam?

[Londo]

Smartphones do, especially in kids because their eyes are more malleable. Spending too much time using close-up focus (like you would when you're staring at a smartphone or tablet all day) lengthens your eyes by a mm or so, increasing the distance between the lens and the retina so that light reflected off the lens goes slightly in front of the retina instead of directly on it. This causes myopia.

There are contacts available now to stop this by the way (MiSight)

I retract what I said, you're correct about Myopia. Wow modern technology really is a curse at times. When I grew up they debunked it for TVs but I guess smartphone screens are a lot different. When people talk about screens I imagine the old myths about radiation from TV sets and stuff. This is super interesting from what I'm reading now.

I wonder how that affects things like Astigmatism and other eye conditions.

 

[Ser Prize]

Smartphones do, especially in kids because their eyes are more malleable. Spending too much time using close-up focus (like you would when you're staring at a smartphone or tablet all day) lengthens your eyes by a mm or so, increasing the distance between the lens and the retina so that light reflected off the lens goes slightly in front of the retina instead of directly on it. This causes myopia.

There are contacts available now to stop this by the way (MiSight)

Is there a way to train your eyes back to a decent state? I've seen some claims.

 

[std::string]

Is there a way to train your eyes back to a decent state? I've seen some claims.

Not sure. Periods of defocusing might work. Basically just imagine you're looking at the horizon and taking in the view even if you're sitting at the computer.

As an added bonus this gives you a nice little acetylcholine flood for some reason (which is why I do it.) Boosts concentration.

 

[Ser Prize]

Not sure. Periods of defocusing might work. Basically just imagine you're looking at the horizon and taking in the view even if you're sitting at the computer.

As an added bonus this gives you a nice little acetylcholine flood for some reason (which is why I do it.) Boosts concentration.

Any views on the endmyopia and reduced lenses stuff? Active focusing and all that.

 

[std::string]

Any views on the endmyopia and reduced lenses stuff? Active focusing and all that.

Nah, sorry. Ophtho's way out of my wheelhouse.

 

[God's drunkest driver]

There's a bit of a chicken and egg thing going on here too. Yes it is probable that more and more close focus screen time is causing some trend toward myopia, but there are also confounding factors which could interfere with determining if there actually is a change happening.

• aging population
• increasing levels of late-life schooling
  • People who may not notice a small visual deficit otherwise will notice it when they are looking at a board or presentation
• increasing usage of fine resolving
  • In a primitive society you may not ever even know you're nearsighted because you may not ever do anything that tests your far resolving power depending on your profession and location.
• dysgenics
  • Kind of self explanatory, natural selection is basically dead in man
• increasing diagnosis
  • Seeing an optometrist is more common now than ever

I've never really liked led lights. I don't like the light they put out. They make my eyes hurt. The light just always seems kind of unnatural.

There is truth to this. If you look at the spectral analysis of a white LED and a fluorescent tube or incandescent bulb you will see a dramatic difference. Most LEDs installations are actually better about this than fluorescent tubes but flicker is more of a problem with LED installations than fluorescent. That's why you and your coworkers were having those issues with your LED lighting; it is probably cheap and flickers too much. I specifically had to shop only the more expensive LED upgrades for my office and garage because so many of the cheaper ones have flicker issues.

 

[PipTheAlchemist]

human eyes aren't actually meant to puzzle out teeny-weeny 12 point font, they're meant to distinguish good fruit from bad.

All fruit is bad fruit. Humans are carnivores, so they're supposed to eat only meat.

 

[Dysnomia]

>And why does worse eyesight correspond to literacy rates?
Because, as useful as the written word is, human eyes aren't actually meant to puzzle out teeny-weeny 12 point font, they're meant to distinguish good fruit from bad.

Red fruit yummy. Green fruit bad tummy.

I read an article about this a few years ago, based on the fact that myopia rates in China have increased hugely in the last century. Basically, it's more or less as @millais said, in that it was ascribed to not spending enough time outdoors during childhood, IIRC.

I have crap eyesight. But so did my mom and grandmother. And when my grandmother was a kid there wasn't even any TV yet. So even though I played a lot of vidya and watched TV I still went outside a lot too and I don't think I screwed my eyes up with too much NES and Mr. Belvedere. I probably inherited problems.

This summer I didn't see many kids running around outside. I saw some kids playing basketball and riding bikes. But nothing like when I was a kid. We were out from dawn til dusk. We'd come back to eat or play video games for awhile. But most of the time we were outside. We played in the snow too. Now as soon as it's a little too chilly kids go in to settle under the warm glow of Xbox and iphones. It's been that way for years. Even when I lived in a nice neighborhood I didn't see that many kids in the summer or in the snow.

Your kids need to touch grass not get groomed on Discord.

 

[GoPro]

Is there a way to train your eyes back to a decent state? I've seen some claims.

Depends on your issue. If its related to muscles in your eye, an ophthalmologist might have some exercises that could help.
Eye issues related to screens can be mitigated by taking breaks. 20-20-20 is the generally accepted recommendation. You should take a break every 20 minutes and look at something at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
Other than that, maintain a healthy lifestyle. Get exercise, plenty of sleep, and eat a healthy diet.

There's a bit of a chicken and egg thing going on here too. Yes it is probable that more and more close focus screen time is causing some trend toward myopia, but there are also confounding factors which could interfere with determining if there actually is a change happening.

• aging population
• increasing levels of late-life schooling
  • People who may not notice a small visual deficit otherwise will notice it when they are looking at a board or presentation
• increasing usage of fine resolving
  • In a primitive society you may not ever even know you're nearsighted because you may not ever do anything that tests your far resolving power depending on your profession and location.
• dysgenics
  • Kind of self explanatory, natural selection is basically dead in man
• increasing diagnosis
  • Seeing an optometrist is more common now than ever

There is truth to this. If you look at the spectral analysis of a white LED and a fluorescent tube or incandescent bulb you will see a dramatic difference. Most LEDs installations are actually better about this than fluorescent tubes but flicker is more of a problem with LED installations than fluorescent. That's why you and your coworkers were having those issues with your LED lighting; it is probably cheap and flickers too much. I specifically had to shop only the more expensive LED upgrades for my office and garage because so many of the cheaper ones have flicker issues.

Rising rates of obesity and diabetes contribute too. Both of these correlate with a lot of health issues, including ones related to eyesight.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Personally I think the abundance of led lighting has something to do with it. Leds are everywhere these days and they're a lot brighter than most people realize. Even with lens covers. Even most screens these days are actually leds.

Fucking LED headlights makes driving at night hell, I hate it so much. I thought it's worse for me just because of my shitty eyesight (I've been legally blind without glasses since high school) where I also have hypersensitivity to light, but everyone I've talked to has issues with headlights. There's like only one mode because of automatics and that's for the high beams. No one can see, so everyone has them up high and everyone is going blind.

I just really hate driving at night, bros.

 

[Power Appreciator]

What the Big Eyeglasses don't want you to know is that most eyesight problems are caused by microorganisms like bacteria and funghi building up a thin layer of inflammatory film on your eyes. In natural circumstances being exposed to natural sunlight would prevent this from occuring, but if you spend a lot of time indoors, it must be addressed in other ways. All you have to do to restore perfect eyesight is to gently wash your eyes twice a day with bleach

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

What the Big Eyeglasses don't want you to know is that most eyesight problems are caused by microorganisms like bacteria and funghi building up a thin layer of inflammatory film on your eyes. In natural circumstances being exposed to natural sunlight would prevent this from occuring, but if you spend a lot of time indoors, it must be addressed in other ways. All you have to do to restore perfect eyesight is to gently wash your eyes twice a day with bleach

I heard gently staring at the sun works too

 

[WhiskeyJack]

If we're talking globally, then chronic vitamin A deficiency is the main issue. If we're talking specifically industrialized countries, then both vitamin A deficiency and the overabundance of small screens that people stare into 10 hours a day. Reading from screens leads to less blinking, less eye movement, and spending so many hours with the eyes focused on a single point leads to nearsightedness. Plus computer screens are pumping out surprising amounts of light into your face, staring at one all day is like looking at a lightbulb for hours. It's not great for eye health, but very common nonetheless.

Eat more fish, and spent a few hours outdoors every day staring off into the distance to exercise the eye muscles.

 

[Megaton Punch]

In the instance of Japan, the reason so many people need glasses is due to an aging population -- humans likely were never meant to live this long and eyesight rapidly weakens with age.

This is the simple, obvious answer. Eyesight is bad because everyone is old now. Nearly one hundred percent of humans require reading glasses at 50, and 50 isn't considered even remotely old these days.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Smartphones do, especially in kids because their eyes are more malleable. Spending too much time using close-up focus (like you would when you're staring at a smartphone or tablet all day) lengthens your eyes by a mm or so, increasing the distance between the lens and the retina so that light reflected off the lens goes slightly in front of the retina instead of directly on it. This causes myopia.

There are contacts available now to stop this by the way (MiSight)

I spent huge amounts of my childhood playing video games from console to handheld to PC. I also spent a lot of time on the computer doing other stuff. I'm good at picking small details out many people won't notice. Unfortunately, I am really nearsighted. Have to wear extra thick glasses.

My eyesight has somehow improved since I started using this thing called kava. The improvement isn't much. Just gets rid of all the blur extreme anxiety causes. Very weird stuff.

 

[Ultrapenguin]

Besides things people have already said:

- I'm sure a processed western diet helps exacerbate the problem. Vegetables like broccoli, carrots, spinach, have the antioxidant lutein in it which is known to reduce age related visual decline (it does other helpful stuff supposedly, but it's particularly known for its effect on vision).

- High blood pressure impacts vision and can cause serious eye damage over time; especially for someone a little older with out of control high blood pressure it'll fuck their vision. Obviously high blood pressure is epidemic in the west for a bunch of reasons.

My eyesight has somehow improved since I started using this thing called kava.

Very degenerate. Too expensive and it makes one's mouth feel gross and numb.

Also Tom Tooter liked kava too, if that's not the strongest anti-endorsement possible I don't know what is.

 

[Ser Prize]

This is the simple, obvious answer. Eyesight is bad because everyone is old now. Nearly one hundred percent of humans require reading glasses at 50, and 50 isn't considered even remotely old these days.

But it doesn't just affect the old. Look at youth myopia rates. Something is clearly fucked.

 

[Grub]

Fucking LED headlights makes driving at night hell, I hate it so much.

I fucking hate lights on modern vehicles they genuinely makes me want to stab a motherfucker in the face. They make night driving so horrible. It doesn't help that 90% of people don't have the courtesy to dim their high beams when they're approaching or tail gating you. At least the assholes blinding you in the oncoming lane go by pretty quickly, but when you've got some asshole right up your ass with their fucking highbeams on with those blinding white or blue leds shooting off every mirror in your car like a laser beam directly in your eyes it's murderous rage inducing. That shit's so fucking dangerous. I take it the same way as someone attempting to kill me and cause an accident. What the fuck else could they be possibly thinking doing shit like that?

 

[MadStan]

Modern eyesight is getting worse because we are testing for it. Humans having bad eyes is nothing new.

 

[Billions Must Force SSL]

Newfag here. Glad to be someone who had quiet a bit of experience researching this topic.

Modern eyesight is getting worse because we are testing for it. Humans having bad eyes is nothing new.

First off, this makes no sense from an evolutionary standpoint: vision is such a crucial sense and any deleterious damage on it will severely limit the chances of your reproduction. It is so disadvantageous to an organism's survival. Can you imagine an animal having -10 diopter myopia? How are they going to survive? So then why do we see 90% myopia prevalence from such a young age in some parts of the world? Why do we see predictions that the rate of myopia globally will rise to 50% in 2050? Clearly it's environment induced and not genetic (although genetics may influence who is most susceptible).

Second, diagnosing myopia is not that difficult. All you need is a Snellen chart, which was developed in the 19th century. (Yes, myopia existed back then but it was very rare compared to today).

The reason modern eyesight is so bad today is:

1. People developing pseudomyopia:

Why can we see distant objects as well as near objects (this property is called accommodation)? It's thanks to this ciliary muscle in our eye: when we look at a distant object it's relaxed and it expands the lens, resulting in the image hitting the retina perfectly. Now when we look at a close object that muscle contracts, making the lens contract and the image hits the retina perfectly.

Now interpret this in light of someone doing close-up all day, as is customary in our modern world. It means that their ciliary muscle was contracted for the entire day! Can you imagine keeping one of your muscles contracted for the entire day? At some point for some us a spasm will form and now suddenly that muscle can no longer relax as well as it used to: meaning that it won't be able to expand the lens as well, so the image won't hit the retina, and there you go: you got what's called pseudomyopia! This stuff is well documented you can find tons of articles on it:

• Wikipedia article on Pseudomyopia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudomyopia
• Go to scholar.google.com and search for "pseudomyopia" you'll find many scientific papers on it.

2. People wearing full-correction glasses with closeup:

When we're a baby ? But now the real problems only start. Once people develop pseudomyopia, what do they do? They go to an optometrist to get an eye checkup and then end up with correction glasses (usually overcorrected). The problem is that when you do close-up activity with these new full-correction glasses (which are more meant for correcting distance vision which was impacted due to pseudomyopia) the correction is high, resulting in the image falling behind the retina. In effect, these glasses are simply too strong for close objects. It turns out when we're born we're all myopic, and the eye has a feedback mechanism that controls its growth. This mechanism doesn't disappear with age and so it's activated once we present the eye with close-up vision with the image ending up behind the retina. So what does the eye end up with? It elongates to accommodate:

Now you end up with a more elongated eye, and so when you do distance vision again the full correction will fail to be sufficient as the image is no longer focused in the retina due to the eye's elongation. As is detailed in this paper:

Spectacle Lens Compensation. The homeostatic control of eye growth functions to keep images sharply focused on the retina. Therefore, if the eye length increases more slowly than does the focal length, the focal plane will be behind the retina, creating hyperopic defocus on the retina. The same occurs if one puts a negative lens over the eye (Figure 2A). To regain sharp focus, the retina needs to be displaced backward to where the image is. This is done in two ways: the eye is lengthened by increasing the rate of growth or of remodeling of the sclera at the posterior pole of the eye Gentle and McBrien 1999 and Nickla et al. 1997, and the retina is pulled back within the eye by the thinning of the choroid, the vascular layer between the retina and sclera ( Figure 2B; Wallman et al. 1995 and Wildsoet and Wallman 1995); once distant images are again focused on the retina (emmetropia), both the rate of ocular elongation and the choroid thickness return to normal. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627304004933

Again you can find this (not on Wikipedia this time) but on scholar.google.com if you search for "lens induced myopia" (that's literally the name!). Get this through your head: the very thing that optometrists give you to see better is causing your eye to get worse. But if you ask any of them why your vision keeps getting worse, and you keep needing stronger and stronger corrections everytime, they keep saying vague claims like it's genetic.

The good news is that this process of eye elongation works both ways, and with the right stimulus the eye can shorten again, at least in guinea pigs (and in humans too according to all the available anecdotal data):

This study investigated whether adolescent guinea pigs can develop myopia induced by negative lenses, and whether they can recover from the induced myopia. Forty-nine pigmented guinea pigs (age of 3 weeks) were randomly assigned to 4 groups: 2-week defocus (n = 16), 4-week defocus (n = 9), 2-week control (n = 15) and 4-week control (n = 9). A −4.00 D lens was worn in the defocus groups and a plano lens worn in the control groups monocularly. Refractions in the defocused eyes developed towards myopia rapidly within 2 days of lens wear, followed by a slower development. The defocused eyes were at least 3.00 D more myopic with a greater increase in vitreous length by 0.08 mm compared to the fellow eyes at 14 days (p < 0.05). The estimated choroidal thickness of the defocused eyes decreased rapidly within 2 days of lens wear, followed by a slower decrease over the next 4 days. Relative myopia induced by 4 weeks of negative-lens treatment declined rapidly following lens removal. http://journals.lww.com/optvissci/A..._Myopia,_Hyperopia,_and_Astigmatism_in.7.aspx

How to reverse the damage?

By exploiting the very way that myopia developed. For close-up using weaker glasses (1 to 2 diopter difference compared to full correction) to stop progression. And doing a lot of distance vision everyday with slightly weaker glasses compared to the full correction (typically just 0.25 diopters), and always trying to clear that blur with your eyes (this is something called "active focus", some can do it by blinking a couple of times, but everyone has to find it their own way). Full correction glasses should only be used for tasks that require high visual acuity, like driving or maneuvering machines. Since myopia development happens over years no one should be expecting to drop 0.25 diopters many times a year. Improvements are usually around 0.75 diopters to 1 diopter a year (so 3 to 4 reductions per year). Of course this is just a very short summary, there's more to it (for example about astigmatism) so I will give some references below for anyone who wants to learn more.

It is now unquestionable that myopia reversal is possible. You can find testimonies of many people who were successful through variations of the method above in reversing their myopia. The earliest of which is a guy that goes by the name of cliffgnu on YouTube:

Why aren't these ideas mainstream ASAP?

Now you might think that given that myopia is so pandemic, and so dangerous (risk of many eye diseases and retinal detachment - which can lead to blindness - goes up pretty quickly with high myopia), and that the basis of these ideas is already scientifically established (like lens induced myopia), that these ideas must be going mainstream? Well the optometry industry is a multibillion dollars business, and with myopia rates only going up there's little chance that we're going to see these ideas gaining mainstream recognition.

Drama (including ongoing threat of lawsuit)

These ideas were (first?) formulated by a rehab program called "Frauenfeld Clinic" (archived link) by someone going by the name of Alex Frauenfeld. (Other people had close ideas, like Todd Becker, so it's difficult to pin point exactly who first came up with this idea, but "Alex Frauenfeld" is the closest one). In 2012 Jake Steiner (not his real name) would follow this guy's rehab program and find that it's working for him. In his own words: https://archive.is/345Za

Later on he would end up being behind that website (he likely founded the Hong Kong company called "Frauenfeld Vision Care, Limited" although I couldn't find any more information on it - it would've helped getting Jake Steiner's real name).

In 2014 Alex Frauenfeld got doxxed since he used his face on a Google+ account, and reverse image search led to his real life identity (an ophtalmologist (!) from North Iowa): https://alexfrauenfeld.blogspot.com/
He likely resigned from the website in fear of his career and reputation.
Jake Steiner would then end up controlling the site and was now redirecting it to endmyopia.org, his own venture.

While he did publish a lot of resources, his blog articles were always intentionally made hard to read and understand. He never gives you the full steps. He does this so you end up buying his "courses" program ("back to 20/20") to fund his lifestyle in Vietnam. He uses "I'm fearing getting sued" as an excuse to put content either behind a paywall or private. For example, the endmyopia forum used to be public but it's now closed, and the invite codes that used to work for it are all defunct now. The only way to access it and its wealth of data (documenting how a lot of people improved their vision, and some niche topics about astigmatism, the last diopter which seems to be tricky, ...) is to pay for his course. Of course he blocks all archival of his website from the Internet Archive as you can check here.

Lately he pissed off one of the main contributors to the endmyopia community wiki (which contains a wealth of info that's very well organized, unlike Jake's blog writings) after he put it behind a paywall and removed admin status from all its main contributors. When he was approached about the reason he made up a totally obvious lie "I'm talking with my lawyers, I might be getting sued for parents complaining about their kids getting advice from the wiki". The main contributor to the wiki told him that he could add a big "+18" warning to the wiki if that was the problem, and that the wiki wasn't the only place they would be getting such advice, but he dodged it by telling him to be patient and see. Thankfully the lad took the opportunity to fork the wiki and host it himself, after which Jake threatened to sue him (when the wiki has a creative commons license CC BY-SA 4.0, so anyone can fork it lol) and he then removed the paywall from Jake's wiki (showing that his parents lawsuit was just empty talk):

He lost even more money trying to trademark key terms like "Reduced Lens Method™" "Active Focus™" "Normalized Glasses™" "Differential Glasses™":

Let's see if he'll actually end up suing that guy, but him trying to gatekeep this idea will simply not work.

The forked wiki now lives here: https://wiki.reducedlens.org/ I would recommend it as the main resource for reading more about this topic as it contains pretty much everything you need to know, see in particular its FAQ which is well written.

That guy also made videos about this drama:

This one is especially spicy:

For a short introduction to endmyopia his video is also well made: