Visual Optics Lab Antwerp (VOLANTIS), Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
Department of Ophthalmology, Antwerp University Hospital, Edegem, Belgium.
Ophthalmic Physiol Opt. 2021 Nov;41(6):1332-1345. doi: 10.1111/opo.12879. Epub 2021 Sep 17.
This study was developed to explain the extraordinary rise in myopia prevalence beginning after 1950 in Indigenous Arctic communities considering recent findings about the risk factors for school myopia development. Myopia prevalence changed drastically from a historical low of less than 3% to more than 50% in new generations of young adults following the Second World War. At that time, this increase was attributed to concurrent alterations in the environment and way of life which occurred in an aggressive programme of de-culturalization and re-acculturation through residential school programmes that introduced mental, emotional and physical stressors. However, the predominant idea that myopia was genetic in nature won the discussion of the day, and research in the area of environmental changes was dismissed. There may have also been an association between myopia progression and the introduction of extreme mental, emotional and physical stressors at the time.
Since 1978, animal models of myopia have demonstrated that myopiagenesis has a strong environmental component. Furthermore, multiple studies in human populations have shown since 2005 how myopia could be produced by a combination of limited exposure to the outdoors and heavy emphasis on academic subjects associated with intense reading habits. This new knowledge was applied in the present study to unravel the causes of the historical myopia epidemics in Inuit communities.
After reviewing the available published data on myopia prevalence in circumpolar Inuit populations in the 20th century, the most likely causes for the Inuit myopia epidemic were the combination of increased near work (from almost none to daily reading) and the move from a mostly outdoor to a much more indoor way of life, exacerbated by fewer hours of sunshine during waking hours, the lower illuminance in the Arctic and the extreme psychophysical stress due to the conditions in the Residential Schools.
本研究旨在解释自 20 世纪 50 年代以来，在因纽特北极社区中近视患病率的异常上升，同时考虑到近期关于近视发展风险因素的研究结果。自第二次世界大战以来，在新一代年轻人中，近视患病率从历史最低点（不足 3%）急剧上升到 50%以上。当时，这种增加归因于环境和生活方式的同时改变，这些改变是通过寄宿学校计划进行的去文化和再文化的激进计划带来的，这些计划引入了精神、情感和身体压力源。然而，近视本质上是遗传的主要观点赢得了当时的讨论，该领域的环境变化研究被驳回。近视进展与当时引入极端精神、情感和身体压力源之间可能也存在关联。
自 1978 年以来，近视动物模型表明，近视有很强的环境因素。此外，自 2005 年以来，多项人类研究表明，近视可能是由于户外活动时间有限和对与强烈阅读习惯相关的学术科目过度重视的综合作用产生的。本研究应用这一新知识来揭示因纽特社区历史近视流行的原因。
在回顾了 20 世纪环极因纽特人群近视患病率的现有已发表数据后，因纽特近视流行的最可能原因是近距离工作（从几乎没有到每天阅读）的增加，以及从以户外活动为主的生活方式转变为更多的室内生活方式，这种转变因白天日照时间减少、北极照度较低以及寄宿学校的极端身心压力而加剧。
