Recently, a joint study by Hu Xintian's group at the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences found that artificial lighting with a low correlated color temperature can slow down the axial development of juvenile macaques. The results may provide new means and methods for preventing juvenile myopia.
According to statistics, there are nearly 500 million myopia patients in China, ranking first in the world. According to a report from the National Health Commission, in 2018, the overall myopia rate among children and adolescents in the country was 53.6%. Among them, the myopia rate of 6-year-old children was 14.5%, that of primary school students was 36.0%, that of junior high school students was 71.6%, and that of high school students was 81.0%. What is particularly serious is that the rate of poor eyesight among students continues to rise, and the upward trend is more obvious in the lower grades.
According to the researchers, in recent decades, with the dramatic changes in lighting conditions in living and learning environments, the incidence of myopia has increased rapidly, suggesting that the light environment may be an important reason for the development of myopia.
Image source: Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hu Xintian's research group used 32 young monkeys as research objects, and used four typical light sources composed of different Correlated Color Temperatures (CCT) to study the relationship between CCT and axial growth. After 365 days of observation, it was found that the axial growth of macaques under low CCT light was significantly smaller than that of macaques under high CCT light, and this effect was persistent and stable throughout the observation period.
This achievement is the first systematic report on the relationship between the color temperature of conventional lighting sources and the development of the eye axis at home and abroad. Since excessive axial growth is the main cause of juvenile myopia, these results have the potential to provide new means and methods for preventing juvenile myopia.
The related research results were recently published in the journal Zoological Research.
