Yes / PURPOSE. To test the hypothesis that emmetropization buffers against genetic and environmental
risk factors for myopia by investigating whether risk factor effect sizes vary
depending on children’s position in the refractive error distribution.
METHODS. Refractive error was assessed in participants from two birth cohorts: Avon
Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) (noncycloplegic autorefraction) and
Generation R (cycloplegic autorefraction). A genetic risk score for myopia was calculated
from genotypes at 146 loci. Time spent reading, time outdoors, and parental myopia were
ascertained from parent-completed questionnaires. Risk factors were coded as binary
variables (0 = low, 1 = high risk). Associations between refractive error and each risk
factor were estimated using either ordinary least squares (OLS) regression or quantile
regression.
RESULTS. Quantile regression: effects associated with all risk factors (genetic risk,
parental myopia, high time spent reading, low time outdoors) were larger for children
in the extremes of the refractive error distribution than for emmetropes and low
ametropes in the center of the distribution. For example, the effect associated with
having a myopic parent for children in quantile 0.05 vs. 0.50 was as follows: ALSPAC:
age 15, –1.19 D (95% CI –1.75 to –0.63) vs. –0.13 D (–0.19 to –0.06), P = 0.001; Generation
R: age 9, –1.31 D (–1.80 to –0.82) vs. –0.19 D (–0.26 to –0.11), P < 0.001. Effect sizes
for OLS regression were intermediate to those for quantiles 0.05 and 0.50.
CONCLUSIONS. Risk factors for myopia were associated with much larger effects in children
in the extremes of the refractive error distribution, providing indirect evidence that
emmetropization buffers against both genetic and environmental risk factors. / UK Medical Research Council and Wellcome (grant ref: 102215/2/13/2), and the University of Bristol provided core support for ALSPAC. This research was specifically funded by the UK National Eye Research Centre (grant SAC015), the Global Education Program of the Russian Federation government, a PhD studentship grant from the UK College of Optometrists (“Genetic Prediction of Individuals At-Risk for Myopia Development”), and an NIHR Senior Research Fellowship award SRF-2015-08-005. The Generation R study is supported by the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO); Netherlands Organization for the Health Research and Development (ZonMw); the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; the Ministry for Health,Welfare and Sports; the European Commission (DG XII); European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant 648268); the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, grant 91815655); and Oogfonds, ODAS, Uitzicht 2017-28 (LSBS, MaculaFonds, Oogfonds).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/17775 |
| Date | 01 April 2020 |
| Creators | Pozarickij, A., Enthoven, C.A., Ghorbani Mojarrad, Neema, Plotnikov, D., Tedja, M.S., Haarman, A.E.G., Tideman, J.W.L., Polling, J.R., Northstone, K., Williams, C., Klaver, C.C.W., Guggenheim, J.A. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, Published version |
| Rights | Copyright 2020 The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
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