{"id":85713,"date":"2025-08-22T19:18:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T19:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/85713\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T19:18:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T19:18:14","slug":"study-suggests-omega-3-fatty-acids-might-prevent-nearsightedness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/85713\/","title":{"rendered":"Study suggests omega-3 fatty acids might prevent nearsightedness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to have a variety of potential health benefits, including a lower risk of heart disease, dementia and some forms of cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Now, new findings indicate omega-3s might help ward off the development of nearsightedness (myopia) in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthday.com\/a-to-z-health\/eye-care\/does-your-child-need-glasses-look-for-these-signs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">children<\/a>, according to a reported Tuesday in the <a href=\"https:\/\/bjo.bmj.com\/lookup\/doi\/10.1136\/bjo-2024-326872\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">British Journal of Ophthalmology<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>People with myopia have trouble seeing distant objects clearly.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, kids with lower omega-3 intake in their diet were more likely to develop the physical eye conditions associated with nearsightedness, including an oblong-shaped eye or a steeply curved cornea, researchers said.\n<\/p>\n<p>The results highlight omega-3 fatty acids &#8220;as a potential protective dietary factor against myopia development,&#8221; concluded the research team led by senior investigator <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ovs.cuhk.edu.hk\/en\/about-us\/our-teams\/academic-team\/jason-yam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dr. Jason Yam<\/a>, a professor of ophthalmology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<p>The study also found that saturated fats from butter, palm oil and red meat might actually boost the risk of nearsightedness.<\/p>\n<p>For the study, researchers tracked the eye health of more than 1,000 Chinese 6- to 8-year-olds, randomly recruited from a larger-scale Hong Kong eye study.<\/p>\n<p>Questionnaires assessed the children&#8217;s diets, and those results were compared to results from their eye exams.\n<\/p>\n<p>Omega-3 fatty acids are primarily found in oily fish, but they also can be found in some seeds and nuts.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, about a quarter of the kids (28%) were nearsighted, results showed.<\/p>\n<p>Axial length &#8212; the length of the eye from the front to the back &#8212; was longest in the 25% of children with the lowest dietary intake of omega-3s, after accounting for other factors, researchers found.<\/p>\n<p>Nearsightedness (also known as shortsightedness) sometimes occurs when the shape of the eye causes incoming light rays to fall short of the retina, the wall of light-sensing cells at the back of the eye.<\/p>\n<p>The study also found that kids with the highest intake of omega-3 fatty acids had the shortest axial length, an indication that they are protected against nearsightedness.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, measures of shortsightedness severity were highest in those kids with the lowest omega-3 fatty acids, researchers said.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, these indications of nearsightedness were increased among kids eating heavy amounts of saturated fats, results show.<\/p>\n<p>No other types of nutrients were associated with nearsightedness, researchers said.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers speculated that omega-3s might protect against nearsightedness by increasing blood flow to the eye, promoting healthy eye development.<\/p>\n<p>More information<\/p>\n<p>The American Academy of Ophthalmology has more on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aao.org\/eye-health\/diseases\/myopia-nearsightedness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">nearsightedness<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/healthday.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to have a variety of potential health benefits, including a lower risk&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[102,6636,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-85713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}