It’s one of the most common, and most embarrassing, events in a child’s life: the first time they’re fitted with eyeglasses.
But a new study finds that eyedrops containing atropine — a substance ordinarily used to dilate pupils — could delay or prevent the day when a kid is mocked for wearing thick “Coke bottle” glasses.
Nearsightedness, or myopia, is found in about one-third of adults, and experts estimate that by 2050 it will occur in 50 percent of adults.
The study, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, asked 489 nearsighted participants ages six to 10 to use a low dose of atropine (either 0.01 percent or 0.02 percent) or a placebo every day for three years.
The researchers found that the atropine limited eyeglass prescription changes and slowed the lengthening of the eye — which causes nearsightedness — better than the placebo.
Surprisingly, the lower 0.01 percent eyedrop solution was even better at slowing the progress of myopia than the stronger 0.02 percent solution.
“This is exciting work for the myopia research community, which I’ve been part of for 35 years,” lead study author Karla Zadnik, professor and dean of the College of Optometry at The Ohio State University, said in a news release.
“We’ve talked about treatment and control for decades,” she said. “And it’s exciting to think that there could be options in the future for millions of children we know are going to be myopic.”
Nearsightedness usually starts in young children and gradually worsens into the teenage years before leveling off at some point.
Some eye experts believe that the risk of developing myopia increases if a child spends a lot of time engaged in activities such as reading or using smartphones, tablets and computers, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
And a number of eye disorders are more common among the nearsighted: retinal detachment, macular degeneration, cataracts and glaucoma occur more frequently in people with myopia than among people with normal vision.
“The idea of keeping eyeballs smaller isn’t just so people’s glasses are thinner — it would also be so that in their seventies they don’t suffer visual impairment,” Dr. Zadnick said.
The authors of the study — sponsored by Vyluma, a pharmaceutical company that specializes in eye treatments — noted that their study was limited by the lack of participants aged 3 to 5 years and 11 to 17 years.
There are currently few other treatment options for myopia: some contact lenses can correct the condition, and surgeries like LASIK, LASEK and PRK (photorefractive keratectomy) have been successful at correcting vision, but these options are typically not available to kids.