Season of Birth, Daylight Hours at Birth, and High Myopia.

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Season of Birth, Daylight Hours at Birth, and High Myopia. Ophthalmology. 2009 Jan 19; Authors: McMahon G, Zayats T, Chen YP, Prashar A, Williams C, Guggenheim JA PURPOSE: Mandel et al recently reported that season of birth and daylight hours (photoperiod) at birth were associated with moderate and high levels of myopia in Israeli conscripts. We sought to investigate whether these associations were evident in subjects from the United Kingdom. DESIGN: Retrospective cross-sectional study. PARTICIPANTS: The study population comprised 74,459 subjects aged 18 to 100 years attending UK optometry practices for an eye examination. METHODS: Data comprising non-cycloplegic spectacle prescription, sex, date of birth, and date of eye examination were collected from UK optometry practices. The average refractive error in fellow eyes was used to classify the degree of myopia in diopters (D) for each subject as follows: absent (>-0.75 D), low (-0.75 to -2.99 D), moderate (-3.00 to -5.99 D), or high (