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Review
. 2020 Jul 2:14:1875-1890.
doi: 10.2147/OPTH.S245192. eCollection 2020.

The Role of Time Exposed to Outdoor Light for Myopia Prevalence and Progression: A Literature Review

Leila Sara Eppenberger  1 , Veit Sturm  1   2
Affiliations
Review

The Role of Time Exposed to Outdoor Light for Myopia Prevalence and Progression: A Literature Review

Leila Sara Eppenberger et al. Clin Ophthalmol. .

Abstract

Purpose: The development of myopia as a refractive disorder seems to hold multifactorial causes. Among others, increased time exposed to natural light outdoors is regarded as possible effective preventive measure against myopia development. The objective of this review is to analyse and summarize the evidence investigating the association between time outdoors and myopia prevalence and progression.

Methods: A review, restricted to articles published in the last ten years, was conducted. The literature search for the included articles was performed in the following databases: PubMed, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science and Scopus. If predefined inclusion criteria were met, the studies were further categorized and data were summarized and individually evaluated.

Results: Two cross-sectional studies, 7 prospective cohort studies and 3 intervention studies were reported in this review, representing the data of a total of 32,381 participants. The majority of the studies found an inverse association between myopia incidence/prevalence and increased time outdoors. The association between time outdoors and myopia progression on the other hand remains debatable; one recent randomized controlled trial indicating a protective value of increased time outdoors for further progression in myopic children.

Conclusion: In summary, increasing time exposed to outdoor light seems to be a simple and effective preventive measure to decrease myopia prevalence. Also, contrasting previous review work, it may represent a potential strategy for myopia progression control. Future investigation is necessary to better define and quantify outdoor time and its effects on myopia.

Keywords: exposure to sunlight; myopia; myopia control; outdoor exposure; prevalence; progression.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors do not have any proprietary interests or conflicts of interest related to this submission. There was no financial support received for this study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram indicating the selection process for study inclusion.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Publication time of included studies. Notes: Cross-sectional studies are marked in blue, prospective cohort studies in green and intervention studies in yellow. The numbering corresponds to the sequence in Tables 2 and 3.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Tabular listing of sample sizes by country where the included studies were conducted, complemented by a geographical overview.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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