The incidence of myopia has dropped by 5.2% in three years! The lighting industry has achieved another major scientific and technological achievement!
After nearly three years of follow-up research and comparison of nearly 1,840 students, the project concluded that the use of healthy light lamps that simulate natural light sources can reduce the three-year myopia incidence rate among children and adolescents by 5.2%.
Previous research reports from the World Health Organization show that the number of myopia patients in China is as high as 600 million, and the myopia rate among teenagers ranks first in the world. Once teenagers develop high myopia, the risk of suffering from various eye diseases will also increase, and they may even become blind. In 2020, the overall myopia rate among children and adolescents in my country was 52.7%, with the myopia rate in kindergarten reaching 14.3%, primary school 35.6%, junior high school 71.1%, and high school as high as 80.5%. In urban areas such as Guangzhou, the prevalence rates of myopia at 10 and 15 years old are 30.1% and 78.4% respectively. It is estimated that by 2050, myopia will affect nearly half of the world's population and become a major public health challenge.
So what should do after myopia? Dean Ge Jian, former dean of Sun Yat-sen University Ophthalmology Center and chief scientist of the Chinese 973 Project, said: In the past 1.0 era, vision problems were corrected by wearing defocused glasses, OK lenses, contact lenses, and surgery, but this belongs to The 1.0 era has not fundamentally solved the problems of light quality and brightness; Dean Ge emphasized that in the 2.0 era, bringing natural light indoors is the best way. The red light in previous lighting was missing. In fact, red light has a greater impact on preventing myopia. Function, red light can stimulate some changes in the choroid and sclera, and can reduce the development of myopia. It calls for the popularization of full-spectrum introduction indoors to effectively reduce the incidence of myopia.
In fact, among the effects of classroom lighting on myopia and even the physical and mental health of children and adolescents, one spectral band is very important, and that is the red light spectrum. According to research projects conducted by Guangdong Cosio Lighting Co., Ltd. and Jinan University Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University Zhongshan Eye Hospital, Foshan Second People's Hospital and many other hospitals, the fullness of the red light spectrum directly affects the myopia of the human eye, immunity level, skin health or not. The importance of the red light spectrum can be seen from this.
Why is the red light spectrum so important for children and adolescents? Concerned medical experts reported in a report titled"Prevention and Control of Myopia in Adolescents: From Research Evidence to Clinical Practice"proposed in his speech,As a new treatment option, light energy treatment for myopia has been tested in medical clinical experiments and can achieve the effect of controlling myopia in children and adolescents. The light energy treatment plan for myopia uses low-intensity, single-wavelength red light or near-infrared light in the range of 630-1000nm to irradiate myopic eyes twice a day for three minutes each time, thereby increasing the choroidal metabolic rate of the eye and reducing the scleral hypoxia rate. In other words, the lack of red light spectrum will lead to hypoxia in the sclera of the eyes, resulting in myopia. Therefore, the red light spectrum is particularly important for children and adolescents.
Recently, papers from the three-year longitudinal research project were included in the famous Science Citation Index (SCI) database. The main purpose of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of artificial natural light in preventing the occurrence of myopia in primary school-age children. As early as 2019, Zhongshan Ophthalmology Center of Sun Yat-sen University, Foshan Second People's Hospital, and Guangdong Cosio Lighting Co., Ltd. jointly conducted a Research on the Effectiveness of Artificial Simulation of Natural Light Sources in Delaying the Progression of Myopia in School-age Children (application code: FS0601). This project was successfully shortlisted for the Guangdong Provincial Fundamental and Applied Basic Research Fund Foshan Joint Fund (Guangdong-Foshan Joint Fund) Project Application Guide.
The research was conducted by Guangdong Medical University,Foshan Second People's Hospital and Guangdong Cosio Lighting Co., Ltd. were conducted from September 2020 to March 2023, using an overall randomization method. With the support of the Chancheng District Education Bureau, 39 classes in 4 primary schools in Foshan City 1840 students participated in this study. A fully randomization method was adopted, and classes were grouped according to a 1:1 random control.
The classrooms in the control group were illuminated by world-renowned brands, while the classrooms in the intervention group were illuminated by simulated healthy natural light sources from a special health chip produced by Cosio Lighting. All students undergo uncorrected visual acuity and best-corrected visual acuity measurements, nonmydriatic refraction, ocular biometric examination, slit lamp and strabismus examination. At three years of follow-up, the students underwent the same procedure. A sample of 1,840 students participated, including 894 students in 19 classes in the control group and 946 students in 20 classes in the intervention group.The mean ± standard deviation age was 7.50 ± 0.53 years. The three-year cumulative myopia incidence rate was 26.4% in the control group (207 incidents among 784 eligible participants at baseline) and 21.2% in the intervention group (164 incidents among 774 eligible participants at baseline). Difference, 5.2% (95% CI, 3.7% to 10.1%); baseline data were collected for children in second and third grades (age: 7-9 years), with annual follow-up in fourth and fifth grades.
Exclusion criteria included a history of ophthalmic surgery, amblyopia, strabismus, and systemic or ocular pathology. Research Methods Students were numbered and barcoded based on the student information provided by each school. All barcodes contained the subject number as well as the school and student name for easy verification. The medical history of all students was recorded and uncorrected visual acuity, best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), autorefraction, ocular biometry, slit lamp examination, binocular strabismus examination, and fundus examination were performed. Students with a history of ophthalmic surgery were not included in this study.
Data on uncorrected visual acuity, BCVA, strabismus and slit-lamp examination were entered manually into the electronic data capture (EDC), while data from the IOL Master and autorefractor were entered manually into the electronic data capture (EDC). Data were automatically uploaded to the EDC via the web, and parents of students were surveyed on height, weight, myopia status by means of a questionnaire. Measurements Eye examinations were performed in the school by 1 ophthalmologist, 1 senior optometrist, 2 ophthalmic nurses and 4 medical students. Training sessions and pilot exercises were held in a primary school before the field work. The examination protocol was based on the protocol used in the Childhood Refractive Error Study.
After nearly three years of follow-up research and comparison of nearly 1,840 students, the project concluded that the use of healthy light lamps that simulate natural light sources can reduce the three-year myopia incidence rate among children and adolescents by 5.2%.
As we all know, SCI uses a variety of strict and scientific quantitative and qualitative screening for its included journals. The journals included are all journals that concentrate on the essence of high-quality and excellent papers in various disciplines, and comprehensively cover the world's most important and influential research results. SCI's research results represent the highest level of basic discipline research in the world. The inclusion and citation of scientific and technological papers in SCI is an internationally accepted basis for evaluating their international academic status, basic scientific research level, scientific and technological innovation strength and the quality of scientific and technological papers.
The core of this research is to create an environment that is conducive to both education and vision health.
We need to realize that although the efforts of the past five years have brought valuable results, there is still a lot to be done to meet the expectations of children who have not yet gotten rid of the constraints of glasses.