Some people prefer to wear glasses from time to time. This is due to various reasons: someone is uncomfortable with them, someone is laughed at, someone does not like his face framed by glasses. However, the question is not only about aesthetics and comfort. Many people are of the opinion that glasses impair vision if worn regularly.
In 2013, the results of a study in Nigeria were published. Almost 65% of the students participating in the survey thought that glasses were harmful to eye health. In Pakistan, 69% of the population is of the same opinion, in the Indian state of Karnataka - 30%. In Brazil, even physicians think so. Are there any grounds for such a point of view?
People have to wear glasses mainly because of two reasons - farsightedness and myopia. The first pathology in most cases is caused by age-related changes. At 40-50 years old, many people report a worsening , difficulty reading, for example, in low light. The aging process affects the state of the lens of the eye, making it less elastic, making it difficult to refocus when the distance to the object changes. You have to buy reading glasses when your hands do not allow you to move the book or menu from your eyes to the required distance.
Oddly enough, the results and consequences of long-term wearing glasses are poorly understood. According to available information, wearing reading glasses does not affect vision. Why are so many people convinced of the opposite?
It can be assumed that the dependence on glasses increases over time, as the lens is increasingly degrading. People often turn to glasses, concluding that they are the cause of visual impairment, despite the fact that such a causal relationship is absent.
From a long-term perspective, it doesn't matter if a person wears glasses or not. However, if he strains his eyes while reading, a headache or discomfort in the eyes may occur.
Do glasses worsen vision? Correct Correction Problem
When we turn to the children, the question will be different. If parents in childhood do not pick up glasses correctly or don’t pick them up at all, there will certainly be consequences.
For a long time, it was believed that wearing myopia is more beneficial when wearing weaker glasses, since the elongation of the eyeball and, accordingly, visual impairment will be slower. The explanation was the following argument: when a person wears glasses selected in accordance with the recipe, then when focusing on an object located near, the eyeball will try to stretch out, and this must be prevented.
A 2002 study in Malaysia showed the fallacy of this hypothesis. It involved 94 children with a diagnosis of myopia, they were divided into 2 groups. In one group, the children picked up glasses in accordance with the recipe, in the other - weaker than necessary. At the very beginning of the study, the children were between nine and fourteen. Over the course of two years, the eyeballs were measured at regular intervals. The study showed visual impairment and a longer eyeball in children who wore weaker glasses.
A Cochrane review published in 2011 (these reviews is being prepared by the international public association of highly qualified doctors - Cochrane Collaboration) for studies of children diagnosed with shortsightedness concluded that it is useful to wear suitable rather than weaker glasses.
The recently published, longest-running twenty-three-year study of progressive myopia in history suggests the opposite. In 1983, in Finland, several groups of myopic children participated in the study, divided by several criteria. The group where the children read without glasses showed the weakest results; visual impairment was more intense compared to those who constantly wore glasses. Three years later, all children were advised to wear glasses constantly. After 20 years, differences between the groups were not identified.
According to the famous ophthalmologist, glasses that are correctly selected cannot harm the health of the eyes.
An obvious fact for everyone is why a visually impaired child should wear glasses. Because his eyes are also subject to the learning process, the lack of correctly selected glasses can cause the development of amblyopia, the so-called “lazy eye”, since the retina had no experience in obtaining a clear and accurate image. Moreover, they found that glasses selected in accordance with the recipe increase reading speed and reduce the likelihood of strabismus.
But let's turn to adults. This area is poorly studied. It turned out that no one has conducted such studies yet.
According to the surgeon of the Morfield Ophthalmology Hospital in London, Professor Anant Viswanathan, there are no studies, since there is no physiological reason to think that glasses impair vision.