Poor sight hits half of middle-aged

MORE than half of Britain’s middle-aged suffer poor vision, a major study suggests.

Analysis of 107,000 people aged 40 to 69 found that 54 per cent had a degree of distorted vision.

Experts suspect that the modern habit of spending time staring at computer screens indoors may be to blame – with research suggesting children may be at even higher risk.

Nearly a fifth of teenagers in Britain today need glasses for short sight, according to separate research published last year. That is more than double the rate in the 1960s.

The latest study, led by experts at University College London, adds to a growing tide of evidence that poor eyesight is one of Britain’s fastest growing health problems.

Experts say myopia, the medical term for short-sightedness, should be declared a major threat to public health. They suspect that a lack of natural daylight may be the cause, with both adults and children now spending many hours a day indoors looking at screens.

The scientists found that 54 per cent of the participants in their study had a ‘refractive error’, which means that the shape of the eye does not bend light correctly, resulting in a blurred image. Of these, 27 per cent had myopia and the other 27 per cent hypermetropia, the medical term for far-sightedness.

One clue to the causes of the problem lay in education levels – 34 per cent of those with degrees were myopic, while only 13 per cent of those with no qualifications were affected.

Ethnicity also played a role. Some 47 per cent of UK adults of Chinese ancestry were myopic, far more than in any other group. The research- ers, led by Phillippa Cumberland, of the UCL Institute of Child Health, wrote: ‘Our findings confirm that ... refractive error is already a major public health issue and indicate that the burden can be anticipated to increase over time.’

Nicola Logan, of Aston University’s ophthalmic research group, told the Sunday Times: ‘It is clear that people who do a lot of close work are more often myopic. However, the cause is not just the close work. The real impact is from not going outdoors. People who read or look at screens a lot are protected if they also spend time outside.’

Research by scientists at Ulster University, published last year, found rates of short-sightedness among teenagers had more than doubled over the past 50 years, with children becoming myopic at a younger age.

The researchers said there was evidence that just an hour extra spent outdoors every day could protect children from developing myopia.