So I quit my job and implemented this software, did a short video with a 3D artist about it.
Turns out marketing is expensive, so I made an open source browser extension version too.
How it works?
There is a small neural network on the retina that tries to detect if the eye is far-sighted(most people are born far-sighted), and it is producing dopamine to slow or increase eye growth rate. It is not very smart, and if you do a lot of near-work it can think you are still hyperopic, causing further myopia progression.
So, based on the refractive properties of the eye the software calculates the signal that would convince the retinal neural network that the eye is long enough, so it would produce dopamine, a known signal to stop axial eye growth. (based on myopic defocus LCA from the papers[2][3])
Some myopia control techniques work similarly, like MiSight and Hoya lenses.
Since then I got a Neurobiologist co-founder and the goal is to best understand the Retinal NN to create the best anti-myopic effect that does not interfere with productivity.
The effect can be tried live on the site. Also check out the github repo. Any questions suggestions welcome!
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37019143 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-26323-7 [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144...
I've installed your Chrome extension and I'm eager to learn more. It's too late for my vision, but it's still getting worse for me in middle age, so I'm very interested in the state of the art based in real science.
For anyone who's interested, there's a group of us dedicated to natural myopia reduction at reducedlens.org, which is a free and open-source fork of endmyopia. I've even started measuring my axial length to try and get better data on if this stuff actually works (only one measurement so far though, so nothing interesting yet).
The nature paper was pretty crazy. Basically because blue bends more than red (think of a prism), it also focuses a bit sooner. This phenomenon is known as longitudinal chromatic aberration, or LCA for short. This means if you're myopic, blue might be more blurry than red, and vice-versa if you're hyperopic. The researchers in the nature paper had participants watch a movie where they straight-up blurred the blue or red with software, in order to produce fake LCA signals. They found the participants axial lengths still shortened or lengthened anyway in response.
"Myopia is not reversible, if you think it is, you don't understand what axial elongation actually means."
There was a member on the forums who was measuring his axial elongation while at the same time applying the reduced lens method. His result is shown in the following plot.[0] It is a significant improvement that can't be ignored, and can't be explained by day to day fluctuations or measurement error. So we know that at least some level of axial elongation can be reversed, and the idea is not complete quackery.
However, my understanding is that myopia is also simply age related. Discussions I've had recently were looking at the hardening of the lens as a factor.
I've been trying to re-train my eye with an eye chart, and I've been surprised how after just a few weeks, my vision has gotten much clearer. Going from 20/40 to nearly 20/25.
In the past few weeks I've started taking collagen to increase/maintain flexibility in the eye, and will continue with the eye exercises.
This is in no way to say that refractify is not valuable. I think it is and I'd add it to my routine.
I should also state that I have corrected my eyesight once before. When I first became a software engineer, I noticed my eyesight degrade quickly (I was in my 30s). I made a conscious effort to spend time outside looking long-distance such as reading street signs from as far away as I could. My eyesight improved dramatically. However, as I've aged, I went from 20/15 to 20/40. Note: 20/15 was examined by a doctor, 20/40 is self measured with an eye chart.
Of course, you could memorize the letters, but that isn't really helping you. What you want to do is to focus on the blurry point, try to make out the letters. Over time, you'll slowly find that you are able to improve.
Previously, when I was younger, I just focused on getting outside more and trying to read signs that were far off in the distance, or ensure that I was looking at far distant objects regularly.
The software author should take a look if this is the case, for to change the packager's configuration (no encryption [if some algorithms in the programs are important, to protect them with through implementation, not packager ], or if the binary is small to not compress, or to adjust other params, etc), or to change of packager, or to contact with the antivirus company.
However, I have password managers, access banking websites, etc so I’m cautious of exes from smaller developers.
I wasn’t able to easily find the real identity of OP but the binary is code signed by a registered company it seems.
and a more reasonable 35%: https://imgur.com/a/doT8YKd
As someone who is -12.5 diopters in my good eye, I’m excited by the prospect of improvement.
BTW, all the links in your footer except privacy policy are 404s
Its about controlled axial length changes to the eyeball with differing methods.
How do minor correction improvements anecdotally reported track choroidal thickness? Oh, they don't?
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=endmyopia+resul...
I personally went from -3.0 diopters to almost 20/20 vision. So either I'm experiencing a fabulous placebo or the 'known mechanisms' aren't as comprehensive as we've been led to believe.
But the video says “treating” it, so which one? I assume it’s just to prevent it but if you have it you better start looking for that Lasik surgery.
I tried the button on both Safari (initially) and Chrome, and I'm struggling to understand if I'm actually seeing what I should see. When on, zooming in to the text shows it's turned a very slight green shade of grey, vs grey when it's off. Visually that's the only difference I saw.
Perhaps I misunderstood "blurring the blue and green channels". I expected some sort of slight but noticeable blur, ie across pixels, but should I actually be seeing _blending_ of the blue and green channels, ie colour mixing but on a per-pixel level?
Is the physical screen ideal or are software solutions expected to have similar efficacy?
I wonder if it's possible to make an android app that does this globally.
What's your business model?
1. Since this is for "early myopia", does it mean it is useless for adults? If not, which groups of adults will find it useful?
2. What do you think about this and is this even related?
> The overall findings are equivocal with under‐correction causing a faster rate of myopia progression. There is no strong evidence of benefits from un‐correction, monovision or over‐correction. Hence, current clinical advice advocates for the full‐correction of myopia
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1111/cxo.12978
Edit to clarify, full correction with glasses should mean always seeing the sharpest picture possible
2. I think undercorrection is somewhat related. I have not yet read the study you linked, I usually refer to this review for undercorrection. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9213207/ I think it would be possible to achieve some results that way as some of the studies from the review suggest, but in practice it is difficult to precisely control the amount of myopic defocus on the retina that you get that way. Most of the time you get no myopic defocus at all due to accomodation and with strong undercorrection you risk losing the visual cues to the sign of defocus, which results in deprivation myopia. I think this is the reason that MiSight contact lenses are known to be effective, while naive undercorrection has mixed results at best.
You can also do this the low tech way by using dirt cheap plus lens glasses. With the added benefit that they make a tiny phone screen look as huge as a cinema screen.
> The participants were asked to watch binocularly a movie on a large TV screen (65 inches, LG OLED65C9, 4 K, 2019) at 2 m distance in a dark room. > With a video format of 1280 × 720 pixels
So you have to work in pitch dark room for this approach to reproduce, no thanks.
