Lots Of People Are Losing Distance Vision, And No One Knows Why

[Riddick]

Modern life takes a toll on bodies. It’s easy to tick off the uniquely 21st-century diseases that plague humans today: obesity, heart disease, diabetes. But those are the visible afflictions, the ones that show up on expanding bellies and skyrocketing death rates.

Out of sight, another epidemic is silently raging: myopia, or nearsightedness. Between the 1970s and the early aughts, the incidence of myopia in the US nearly doubled, to 42 percent. Myopia’s rise has been the starkest in Asia; one survey in Korea found a rate as high as 96 percent among teenagers.

Clearly, something is going on. But scientists can’t agree on exactly what. FULL STORY