Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 424 posts

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#371

Post by Aulig »

atombender wrote: post #352
Aulig wrote: post #325

Honestly, myopia is not complicated (Kepler pretty much had it right in 1604 already). There's countless studies showing that axial length (eyeball length) changes in both directions, where elongation increases myopia. How do you change it? You get defocus (blur) which makes the eye adjust in the direction to reduce the blur. Practically: use weaker (around 1.5 diopters) or no glasses during close-up work (reading, c…

Is there a single step-by-step guide that shows what to do? All I can find on that (frankly quite awful) site are ways to sign up to a course by email, lots of podcast episodes, testimonials for people that improved their eyesight, and endless photos of what I assume is the site's creator. The "Guides" page doesn't actually have any guides, just more of the same. From what I can tell, the guy really wants to sell you…

His free 7 day email guide is a good introduction imo (if i remember right, it was 1.5 years ago for me after all). You might also prefer the wiki, which is more seriously written: https://wiki.endmyopia.org/wiki/EndMyopia_Wiki

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#372

Post by Aulig »

nealabq wrote: post #341
Aulig wrote: post #325

Honestly, myopia is not complicated (Kepler pretty much had it right in 1604 already). There's countless studies showing that axial length (eyeball length) changes in both directions, where elongation increases myopia. How do you change it? You get defocus (blur) which makes the eye adjust in the direction to reduce the blur. Practically: use weaker (around 1.5 diopters) or no glasses during close-up work (reading, c…

This probably works for most people. But I've used 2-diopter weak glasses for the last 40 years, whenever I'm indoors. I think it helped slow the worsening of progression of my nearsightedness, but didn't stop it and certainly didn't reverse it.

Congrats! It's already good to stagnate so you dont get into high myope territory, which comes with lots of risks.

Apart from that I'm positive you could make improvements. You'd need to continuously measure your eyesight and adjust your glasses accordingly, otherwise you might undo your improvements by being overcorrected.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#373

Post by mbrameld »

kenbolton wrote: post #349

I wore glasses for a few years in high school because I had trouble seeing the blackboard from anywhere but the front row. I started hiking and kayaking every day, especially in places where I could see for many miles. I also migrated from CRT to LCD to LED screens, and more recently to e-ink devices when possible. Very fine print in a dark space is hard to read, but I can read a moving US license plate from six bloc…

    I am able to differentiate a bald eagle from an osprey at two miles based on the shape of the wings
I wonder how you judge the distances? I'm a helicopter pilot and I don't even bother looking for traffic farther than 2 miles out unless it's an airliner. I have radar telling me how far away they are so I know the distances are accurate.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#374

Post by paulryanrogers »

watwut wrote: post #342
paulryanrogers wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had some fights with kids at that age, but it definitely was not every single time we walked. You are exaggerating how bad it is. Every child is unique. Some are more stubborn than others. This is a challenge with any parenting advice because there is so much variance. My experience is my kids do fight or linger every time despite the routine and nudges.

Sure. But the whole "heh your plan to have daily walks with kids is impossible" is just not true. Families with kids walk to places. Plus, there are millions of single parents around the world who don't have cars and walk+public transport their kids to daycare daily.

I'm not saying a daily walk is impossible. Rather some will find it easier than others. Still, with two working parents and car focused city planning it can be very challenging to do seemingly trivial things.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#375

Post by abledon »

kenbolton wrote: post #349

I wore glasses for a few years in high school because I had trouble seeing the blackboard from anywhere but the front row. I started hiking and kayaking every day, especially in places where I could see for many miles. I also migrated from CRT to LCD to LED screens, and more recently to e-ink devices when possible. Very fine print in a dark space is hard to read, but I can read a moving US license plate from six bloc…

do you work a regular programming 9-5 job infront of a screen...?

there is the Dasung E-ink 23" monitor

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#377

Post by planarhobbit »

Aulig wrote: post #370
alar44 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just no evidence for it. It's that fucking simple.

No evidence for what? Almost everything related to endmyopia is proven, aside from the whole thing put together. The main thing, axial length reduction through undercorrection, has been shown in plenty of animals and humans.

I think what the parent is trying to say is that we have studies that show how myopia can be induced. I think EndMyopia gives examples in baby chickens or some such. But I’ve yet personally not come across a vetted study that shows reversal of myopia. And I support EndMyopia/Hormesis Theory as I’ve applied some of the ideas to help my one weaker eye get a bit sharper over time.

I understand there’s an industry that wants to be paid for prescription glasses and lenses and whatnot, and that can throw a wrench and it does into the whole thing - see the Sugar vs Fat vs Whatever industry battle. But a little would go a long way.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#378

Post by silisili »

doliveira wrote: post #165
silisili wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I replied elsewhere...I disagree that light type is the culprit. If so, why do people in areas without electricity become myopic? That strongly feels like correlation rather than causation at its finest. My brother and I were kids with mostly similar habits. We spent a lot playing outside, but he loved reading his Goosebump books, while I mainly watched TV at a distance. He needed glasses as a kid, and I didn't until…

The reasoning is supposed to be statistical, so your counterpoint "why do people in areas without electricity become myopic" doesn't even make sense. A proper counterpoint would be "people in areas without electricity have the same chance of being myopic as people in areas with electricity", and well, data seems pretty clear they don't.

Fair point. Would another fair avenue to potentially counterpoint be to ask why countries with less light for long periods, such as Nordic countries, or areas where people spend months at a time indoors like frigid areas, are not more nearsighted than fairweather areas like Singapore?

Unrelated, I'm wondering if there is some method to tell. The general fact is, people indoors tend to be focusing on things close by. And vice versa outside. So it feels impossible to conclude without controlling for the other. Can we find people who read or smartphone for hours on end outdoors? Or people indoors who don't do those things?

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#379

Post by Jenda_ »

amelius wrote: post #361
kenbolton wrote: post #349

I wore glasses for a few years in high school because I had trouble seeing the blackboard from anywhere but the front row. I started hiking and kayaking every day, especially in places where I could see for many miles. I also migrated from CRT to LCD to LED screens, and more recently to e-ink devices when possible. Very fine print in a dark space is hard to read, but I can read a moving US license plate from six bloc…

This makes me wonder: is there a lens that you could use instead of glasses that will make your computer screen appear as if it is further away? Could it help people regain their far-sight?

Sure, get convex lens ("reading glasses") of about +1 to +1.5D and make the IPD as low as possible to induce a prism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prism_correction#Prentice's_ru... (in layman terms, this will make the "rays" coming from your two eyes "cross" and intersect at a certain distance)

You can also use prismatic lenses as the induced prism probably won't be sufficient (but better than nothing), but my local shop does not make them, so I have no experience with this.

I am shortsighted and I have special glasses for computer/close work (reading, soldering), which are 1.5D weaker and the IPD is 10mm larger (as these are concave lenses, it's the opposite IPD manipulation than with convex). The induced prism for my glasses is about 2Δ.

I don't understand why this is not more popular, both among shortsighted (to have weaker glasses to use indoors) and healthy (to have "reading glasses"). Including the prism. Beware, that some doctors say that by using such "perfect" correction for e.g. your computer screen, your eyes will "get lazy". I don't think this is true, but YMMV.

Protip: there are online services that will just make you glasses, no questions asked, usually for $20 to $40 for basic glasses. Here in .cz we have optiscont, globally, there is zennioptical; you can also search aliexpress. I don't have any apparatus to measure the quality of the resulting lenses, they however seem "good enough".

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#380

Post by Sunspark »

coffeeblack wrote: post #49
Fordec wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer, yes. Long answer, you'll need to really jack up the power consumption. Replicating a thing that in itself an energy source needs waaaay more than just a 60W light bulb.

60W would be some 10 LED lights that each are 100W equivalents to old glow lights. That would probably already do the trick in a small room. Do people really still use old “light bulbs”?

Yes, I do. Where I live, winters are long, so none of the heat is wasted. But that aside, the real reason is the quality of the light. Spectra! Incandescent lighting is a black body radiator basically, so you will have a full spectra curve even if it is weighted toward the red side. The downside of LEDs (and the CCFLs that preceded them) is that they only have a few narrow peaks in the spectra, R G B at differing heights and the rest of it is low. This is why colour rendition generally looks poor, and even worse, they flicker! Because we live in a society that wants everything as cheap as possible, the LEDs generally flicker at 60 or 120 Hz, sometimes higher. This causes a strobing effect, etc. This can be avoided by using DC current, but who uses that? CCFLs used electronic ballasts with much higher rates but they're not on the market anymore. Incandescents have a small degree of flicker too, but it's basically non-existent because as black-body radiators they continue glowing until the next pulse arrives.. LEDs are not like that, they are instant on-off, and their "dimming" trick is usually pulse-width-modulation where they're still fully light, but their duty cycle is spaced further apart, you think it is dimmer but it is not.

LEDs are a terrible technology for lighting.

Post reply on HN