Myopia or nearsightedness is a refractive vision disorder that results in blur vision due to the lengthening of the eye known as axial length. The inconvenience of blur vision can be minimized with prescription glasses or contact lenses, or long term solution through invasive refractive surgery aka LASIK, but that’s not without its risks.
However, if Japan-based Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings claims are true, then the future would be a lot clearer for myopic person without the use of glasses, contact lenses, or invasive surgery.
The Japanese pharmaceutical company’s subsidiary, Kubota Vision Inc., has developed a pair of “smart glasses” that claims to be able to cure myopia when worn an hour per day.
Wearable Device for Myopia Control [note: link is PDF], as it is called, is non-invasive and it looks like a pair of regular eyewear, albeit one that look somewhat weird. It does sound like a miracle solution, but it apparently has science to back it up.
Wearable Device for Myopia Control uses Kubota Glasses technology which works to reduce the progressive increase in axial length of the eye of myopic patients and it does so by using micro LEDs to project myopically-defocused virtual images on the peripheral visual field to actively stimulate the retina.
Apparently, it can do so without impeding on the wearer’s vision. This means, it can be worn as you go about doing your things. But clearly, not when you are operating something critical, such as driving.
“This product, which uses multifocal contact lens technology, passively stimulates the entire peripheral retina with light myopically defocused by the non-central power of the contact lens… Kubota Glasses technology leverages nanotechnology in its electronic glasses-based device and seeks to reduce the progression of myopia by actively stimulating the retina for shorter periods while maintaining high-quality central vision and not affecting daily activities.”
It is not clear how long a person have to wear the “smart glasses” an hour a day in order for it to get rid of the myopia, or if it can cure myopia entirely. It is also not known to what power of myopia it can cure.
Kubota Pharmaceutical said it has began clinical trials in the summer 2020 and while it is currently conducting clinical tests on around 25 person in the U.S., myopic folks in the U.S. won’t getting this cure for myopia first.
The company said it plans to start selling Wearable Device for Myopia Control in Asia first where it has a high ratio of nearsighted people. The company expects sale to start something in second half of 2021.
In the meantime, you can learn more about this awesome development over at Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings’ website.
Images: Kubota Vision Inc..
Source: Oddity Central.
