Exercise-conditioned tear fluid suppresses myopia progression

Abstract

Myopia represents a major global public health challenge with rapidly rising prevalence. It is thus important to explore novel therapeutics for the treatment of myopia. Here we predicted tear fluid after (TA) but not before (TB) moderate-intensity aerobic exercise might protect against myopia using reverse transcriptomic analysis. To experimentally validate this hypothesis, TA or TB was administered by periocular injection in a guinea pig model of form-deprivation myopia. As a result, TA treatment significantly attenuated myopic refractive shifts and suppressed vitreous chamber depth and axial length elongation, whereas TB showed no protective effects. This study proposes a novel therapeutic avenue for myopia intervention and also suggests a previously unrecognized tear fluid-mediated mechanism linking exercise to myopia.