Wearing specific contact lenses at night could stop children from becoming short-sighted

A new study has shown that children could be cured of short-sightedness by wearing soft contact lenses at night which re-shape their eyes to prevent them ever needing glasses.

Over 300 children in Britain and across the world were involved in trials which showed that the lenses can stop the eye becoming misshapen which leads to myopia - a condition which causes distant objects to appear blurred, while close objects can be seen clearly.

None of the children within the study suffered further change in their vision during the three year trial period although all of the control groups rapidly deteriorated.

According to Professor Pauline Chom, of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which carried out one of the trials,

"Parents who are worried about myopic progression in their children now have a viable option,Orthokeratology has been shown to effectively slow the progression of myopia in children."

The onset of short-sightedness generally occurs in childhood and about one in three adults have the condition, and people with myopia are at higher risk for retinal detachment and glaucoma.

While people with normal vision have their eyeball grow along with the rest of the body and is programmed to stop growing at a point that sustains clear vision, in people with myopia, the typically spherical eyeball becomes elongated, resembling the shape of a grape or an olive.

According to Jennifer Golden, Co-Founder and Director at iGO Optical who markets the lenses in the UK.

“The children who wore overnight lenses suffered minimal deterioration in their eyesight over three years.”

Also experts at the Beijing Institute of Ophthalmology, Beijing Tongren Hospital, who have been trialling the glass box school classrooms and allowing youngsters to have lessons outside have already found that it has reduced myopia by 23%.

Gordon Ilett, a representative from the Association of Optometrists, and a specialist in children’s eyesight, however called for more testing of the lenses.