The 2020s saw the end of Karla Rodriguez’s 20/20 vision. The 31-year-old journalist stepped off the train one day and found she could no longer read the signs guiding her to her street exit. “It made me really sad because I used to brag that I never wore braces and I never wore glasses,” she says.
Rodriguez has joined a rapidly expanding group. Almost half the global population is projected to have myopia, or nearsightedness, by 2050, according to a 2016 Ophthalmology study. While myopia usually emerges during childhood, adults are not immune, and many of their current lifestyles introduce the risk factors thought to be driving this upward trend.
Like a camera, the lens in the front of the eye and the length of the eyeball from front to back work together to focus an image on the retina at the back of the eye. In myopia, either the ...
