WA Research: regular eye checks worthwhile for young adults

Perth researchers found that myopia may affect up to a third of young adults, hinting at the need of regular eye checks.


A new study, led by researchers from the Lions Eye Institute in Perth, hints at the need of getting younger adults to check their eyes more often.

The study, published earlier this month in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology, followed the eye health of nearly 700 young adults, part of Perth’s Raine Study, over the course of eight years.

According to lead author, Dr Samantha Sze-Yee Lee, from the Lions Eye Institute, their study found that more than a third of young adults may experience a “myopic shift” in at least one eye after the age of 20. These finding changes previous views that myopia stabilises in children by their mid-teens and hint at the need of getting young adults to test their eyes.

“We used to think that myopia, or short-sightedness, starts to develop and worsen only during childhood,” Dr Lee said. “However, our study reports that about 14 per cent of people who do not have myopia at age 20 go on to develop it by age 28. Additionally, myopia continues to worsen in about one-third of young adults in their third decade of life,” she added.

Another important finding of this new study is that women seem to have a higher risk of developing myopia, compared to men. “Women are at 80 per cent higher risk of myopia onset in their third decade of life, and have about twice the rate of myopia progression compared to men,” Dr Lee said.

According to Dr Lee, a potential reason to explain the higher risk women face may have to do with environmental factors, like working more often in an indoor-based occupation. However, further research, is needed to understand what factors are driving myopia progression in young adults.

“There is limited data available on the development of myopia in young adults, and our research is one of the first studies to explore this cohort,” Dr Lee said. “We know having parents with myopia increases the risk and rate of progression, however most myopia studies have focused on children, or specific populations,” she added.