inuit

There is no strong evidence that nearsightedness, or myopia, is genetic, as previously thought. In fact, there is some compelling evidence to the contrary.

The “Alaskan Eskimo” Study

In 1968, Dr. Frances Young led a research team to Alaska to study Inuit families who were being assimilated into a modern American lifestyle.

The parents in the study were mostly illiterate and followed the traditional Inuit lifestyle of hunting and fishing, their children had entered standardized public schooling, reading and writing for hours a day.

It would be expected that if myopia was hereditary, the children and their parents would have relatively similar percentages of nearsightedness. But what Dr. Young found out was astounding.

Only two out of 130 parents were myopic, and the amount of myopia was very small. Of the children tested, over 60% were myopic! Dr. Young concluded that this was caused by the long periods of reading as the children went through school.

Recently, the National Eye Institute issued a report that basically states the following: if you weren’t myopic as a child, your myopia probably isn’t inherited.

From The American Vision Institute.