Gene Variant--Not Reading--Might Be Cause of Myopia

"New research has suggested that when kids with a certain gene spend much of their time doing activities that involve close work such as reading, they are more likely to develop the condition. This finding has led the study's authors to suggest that nearsightedness is reaching epidemic proportions," says Medical News Today. "An analysis of data from around 14,000 people finds that those carrying a variant of a gene called APLP2, were five times more likely to have myopia (nearsightedness) if they had spent an hour or more reading each day when they were children. However, people who carried the gene variant but did not spend so much time reading when they were kids had no additional risk of developing myopia. The study, led by vision researchers at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, NY, is published in the journal PLOS Genetics." Read more.