快猫短视频

LEAVING a light on in the nursery does not make children grow up to be
short-sighted, according to two new studies. The studies contradict a highly
publicised finding by researchers last year linking night lights to
short-sightedness.

Many parents decided to switch their nursery lights off at night after
researchers at the Scheie Eye Institute in Philadelphia said that short-sighted
children were more likely to have slept with the lights on as infants
(快猫短视频, 15 May 1999, p 6).

But Karla Zadnik of Ohio State University in Columbus has now carried out a
survey of the parents of 1220 children and found no association between night
lights and myopia. And Jane Gwiazda of the New England College of Optometry in
Boston also failed to find any link in her study of 213 children (
Nature, vol 404, p 143). 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 a dead issue,鈥� says Zadnik.

Gwiazda鈥檚 study shows that myopic parents are more likely to leave the lights
on, perhaps because they need more light than people with better vision. Vision
has a hereditary component, so this finding could explain the reported link
between night lights and later myopia. 鈥淎t this point in time, there鈥檚 no need
for parents to be concerned about turning on the lights in the nursery,鈥� Gwiazda
says.

But Graham Quinn, one of the authors of the original study, is unconvinced.
He points out that the new studies looked at older children, who have a lower
rate of myopia. 鈥淭hey have a very different population than I do,鈥� Quinn says.
He thinks the younger children with a higher incidence of myopia in his study
may have a genetic vulnerability to light at night.