Myopia Theories - The theory surrounding Vitamin D

Greetings to all and sundry,

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I hope you are doing well and having a good time as well. Let's continue to stay safe as we are still living a pandemic world. Anyway i am here once again for us to have some discussions on the eye.

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For today i would be looking at some of the popular theories surrounding myopia and how we may be able to apply these theories in different aspects of our lives to perhaps help us in our ocular healthcare journey.

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Quick Recap on Myopia

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If you are new to the idea of refractive errors and how things work in relation to the eye i would suggest that you take a look at some of my previous articles covering the various types of refractive errors including myopia to help you grasps things better. I would do well to leave the links below however for the purpose of today's lessons let's quickly go through what myopia is.

So when we say myopia is basically a refractive state of the eye where light from objects going into the eye for vision is focused in front of the point where it ought to have focused. This point is basically the part of the eye called retina. A simple solution is the prescription of glasses after your optometrist has taken you through the refraction process.

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Currently myopia is considered as a pandemic which is increasing in prevalence and incidence all across the globe with higher numbers been recorded in the eastern worlds, this has made it a global health concern hence more research has been focused on it in trying to find ways and means to arrest the condition. Let's take a look at some of these theories.

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The theory of vitamin D

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According literature Vitamin D which is a membrane antioxidant has significant role to play when it comes to the eye growth or development a process known as emmetropization. This process is what ensures that the length of the eyeball correlates with the power of the eye such that one would not end up with a refractive error like in the case of myopia.

So what vitamin D does is to regulate the eye ball growth or extension process, when there is enough within the system as a child grows especially during the sensitive period for eye ball development thus from 6 to about 11 years it would ensure that everything grows according to perfection.

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When this is not in a good quantity or amount then we end up with myopia. Vitamin D also has a role to play in the impulse manipulation and the phototransduction process that allows us to see, this would be looked at later though however i do hope you are getting the point with respect to the theory.

And so according this it may be the reason why people in the tropic areas tend to record lower levels of myopia in comparison with individuals from the other parts of the world. And so one suggested way of curbing myopia may be vitamin D supplementation especially for kinds within the sensitive period of eye growth.

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The question however remains as to whether this would actually work owing to the fact that there are so many parameters surrounding the growth and development of the eyeball with respect to myopia as a refractive error. Irrespective i would recommend that you try to get yourself enough vitamin D in your system.

The beautiful thing about vitamin D is the fact that we can get just enough from exposure to the sun at the right times, the right times because UV can also be dangerous or harmful to us when we are overexposed.

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Conclusion

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The theories surrounding vitamin D as already stipulated are many and we would be taking them one after the other, i do hope you would be staying with me during the whole process though.

Thanks for reading and have wonderful time. Do well to leave a comment below or share your thoughts and i would do well to reach out to you. You may also check out my previous blogs for more understanding on refractive errors and also check out the additional read articles. My regards to Prof @lemouth and @gentleshaid from Nigeria. Love from Ghana. Cheers

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For extra reading

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Understanding Refractive Errors: Astigmatism

Understanding Refractive Errors: Hyperopia

Understanding Refractive Errors

Li, Y. F., Dong, L., & Wei, W. B. (2021). [Zhonghua yan ke za zhi] Chinese journal of ophthalmology, 57(6), 470–476. https://doi.org/10.3760/cma.j.cn112142-20201120-00766

Pan, C. W., Qian, D. J., & Saw, S. M. (2017). Time outdoors, blood vitamin D status and myopia: a review. Photochemical & photobiological sciences : Official journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology, 16(3), 426–432. https://doi.org/10.1039/c6pp00292g

Ramamurthy, D., Lin Chua, S. Y., & Saw, S. M. (2015). A review of environmental risk factors for myopia during early life, childhood and adolescence. Clinical & experimental optometry, 98(6), 497–506. https://doi.org/10.1111/cxo.12346

Li, X., Lin, H., Jiang, L., Chen, X., Chen, J., & Lu, F. (2022). Low Serum Vitamin D Is Not Correlated With Myopia in Chinese Children and Adolescents. Frontiers in medicine, 9, 809787. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2022.809787