Natural selection contributes to the myopia epidemic.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Long E
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8288186 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Natural selection contributes to the myopia epidemic.
National science review 20200817 6
The prevalence of myopia, or nearsightedness, has skyrocketed in the past few decades, creating a public health crisis that is commonly attributed to lifestyle changes. Here we report an overall increase in the frequencies of myopia-associated mutant alleles over 25 years among participants of the UK Biobank. Although myopia itself appears to be selected against, many of the mutant alleles are associated with reproductive benefits, suggesting that reproduction-related selection inadvertently con ...[more]
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