Short -term Taiwan can have lessons for the world as preventive diseases of Skyrockets | Taiwan

IIn the last days of their eight -eater Butkamp, ​​dozens of young Taiwanese draftees are tested on a strip of obstacles. Men in full combat set crawl under the rows of razors and through bunkers as controlled explosions of mud explosions into the air. Pink and green smoke blooms in a simulated gas attack, demanding from conscripts to quickly put on gas masks so that they can rush from the zone. But this is where many of them stop, stopping the assault training to spend precious seconds, removing their glasses so that the masks fit.

The calls mostly look at the age of 20. Statistics suggests that this means that in any place up to 90% of them have a certain degree of myopia, otherwise known as myopia.

Taiwan has one of the highest world indicators in the world, along with most of East Asia and Singapore. In addition to platoons of soldiers with glasses, there are many other signs. Optometric shops are everywhere, there are more than 40 outlets of its own days near Taibay, a chain that checks the vision of customers and makes prescription glasses in place for an hour. Laser eye surgeons advertise the latest technologies, relatively cheap, virtual production line of patients every day. And if you visited the hospital registration stand in Taiwan, and not the pens chained to the rack, you will probably find a couple of points.

“As soon as they begin myopia, the progression is very fast”

“Eye health is the most important sensory organ in our body. Every day we wake up and must use our eyes, ”says Dr. Wu Pi-chang, the leading Taiwanese researcher of the subject and director of the Center for Treatment and Prevention of Myopia in the Kaosiung hospital.

Myopia is a preventive disease in which an abnormal lengthening of the eyeball makes the light concentrate before the retina, and not on its surface. The distortion level is measured in diopter, and high myopia (when the distortion progressed in the past -5.00 diopter) can lead to blindness if it is not treated. The most important time is childhood, while the eyes of the child are still developing. “As soon as they start myopia, the progression is very fast,” says Wu.

For decades, science stated that myopia was a genetic state, but from the 1960s and 70s an explosion in bets in East Asian countries, which were simultaneously subjected to large -scale economic and educational expansion, reduced this thinking. By the age of 1990, myopia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore have grown from 20% to more than 80%. They soon joined China, originally deferred by the cultural revolution.

The governments widely studied this phenomenon, but it turned out to be quite simple. It is currently known that myopia is associated with excessive “almost work”, such as reading, studying and computer work. And later studies have shown that an increase in open air is an important protective factor.

That is why scientists say that the indicators in East Asia and Singapore are so high where cultures emphasize high education results, with extensive training time, preferred by parents, behind playing in the fresh air.

Now this is a problem that spreads around the world. Study Published in September in the British journal of ophthalmology discovered that global indicators of myopia tripled in the period from 1990 to 2023. By 2050, almost half of the world’s population will have it, and this will correspond to earlier, more rapid progression and more seriousness.

Taiwan’s indicators are still high, but government and social programs have demonstrated measurable success, and experts say that he did not go through his peak. As bets in the West, this may have lessons for exchange.

Outdoor time V screen time

Wu, a short -sighted man himself, was a young resident when he began to notice an alarming amount of his patients and colleagues who also have a myopia, and many faced serious complications of the development of the disease. It became the work of his life. In 2004, the article found that high myopia was the main reason for irreversible blindness in Taiwan. The lobbyed VU, which was currently engaged in national advisory councils, the government adopted new politicians, including a two -day testing of school students, and improved treatment options. But the bets are still growing.

“Eyes are developing rapidly [in childhood]- says Professor Jan Morgan, a leading expert in this area, from the Australian National University. “Myopia has up to about 18-20 years before it stabilizes. So, if a child becomes a short -sighted one at the age of six, he still has about 14 years to worsen. ”

Several years later, two studies, including one of Australia, led by Morgan, offered Svetobulb the moment for Taiwan. Both found that the more time the children spend in the open air, the less likely they will have myopia.

Wu conducted his own tests, finding similar results. This led to the government initiative of 2010 “Tian-Tian 120” (120 every day), urging all children to spend at least two hours on the street a day as a “protective factor”.

“It was actually very simple – [the problem was] That myopic myopia has a protective factor and risk factor, but we focused only on the risk factor, ”says Wu.

Open -air time changed the tendency to myopia upFor several years, for several years, the rates among primary schoolchildren with more than 50% to 45%. In Ilana, the 2014 public program has been reached About 50% decrease At the preschool level.

Researchers were inspired. They found a way to slow down the beginning of myopia, allowing children to achieve an important stage of adulthood with minimal progression of the disease.

But they had to convince parents and schools to relax on their homework.

Taiwanese statistics show that myopia, in the visible one, is significantly deteriorating at a time when students switch to new school stages with a sudden increase in educational load. The 2017 study showed that the level of myopia increased from 9% to 19.8% aged six to seven years, when children begin the first grade, while high myopia increased by more than 50% between 6 and 7th grade.

In the junior secondary school in Central Taibe, dozens of 8th grade students lined up for a school clinic for their twice a year. If any indicators of myopia, two nurses, nurses will send a letter to their parents within a few days, with a request to show evidence of medical consequences within two weeks.

There is also a growing concern about the exposure of the screen time, which grows around the world. Last week a Korean study is shown Every hour of the screen increased the chances of myopia among children.

Hong Kong Primary Students who conducted most of the Covid pandemia, doing online reported in 2023The field according to the Chinese University of Hong Kong, during the same period, myopias increased 2.5 times. In the province of Shandong, in the province of Shandun, the rate among six and seven-year-olds jumped from 5% to 25%.

The indicators in Taiwan are still high, but Morgan and Wu say that the peak is over, and Taiwan on the way to reducing bets. Government data is disappointed, but Wu says that it completes a 10-year study, which suggests that prevalence is now “decreasing very low” decade ago.

In a secondary school in Taibei, the younger school of teachers evaluate that their students probably receive 60 minutes in open air in school hours and, possibly, another 30 on the way home. But as the children move up, “the pressure on the study increases.”

When asked where the pressure is still – a school, parents or peers – teachers laugh. “Everywhere.”

Additional reporting Jason Zzu Kuan Lou