Trends in Prevalence of Blindness and Distance and Near Vision Impairment Over 30 Years and Contribution to the Global Burden of Disease in 2020

Background: The Vision Loss Expert Group and Global Burden of Disease Study have extensively updated estimates of global vision loss burden in 2020, temporal changeover 3 decades and forecasts for 2050. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted of population-based datasets relevant to vision impairment (VI) from January 1980 to October 2018. Hierarchical models were fitted to estimate 2020 prevalence (with 95% uncertainty intervals, UI) of (1) mild VI (presenting visual acuity [PVA] 6/12). Findings: In 2020, an estimated 43.2 million (95% UI: 37.5-48.2 million; 55% female) people were blind, 295.3 (95% UI 267.0-325.5) million had MSVI, 257.3 (95% UI 232.2-284.7) million h…

Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia…

Author response: Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

BACKGROUND: Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents.

Genome-wide association meta-analysis of corneal curvature identifies novel loci and shared genetic influences across axial length and refractive error

Corneal curvature, a highly heritable trait, is a key clinical endophenotype for myopia - a major cause of visual impairment and blindness in the world. Here we present a trans-ethnic meta-analysis of corneal curvature GWAS in 44,042 individuals of Caucasian and Asian with replication in 88,218 UK Biobank data. We identified 47 loci (of which 26 are novel), with population-specific signals as well as shared signals across ethnicities. Some identified variants showed precise scaling in corneal curvature and eye elongation (i.e. axial length) to maintain eyes in emmetropia (i.e. HDAC11/FBLN2 rs2630445, RBP3 rs11204213); others exhibited association with myopia with little pleiotropic effects …

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

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Rare variant analyses across multiethnic cohorts identify novel genes for refractive error

Refractive error, measured here as mean spherical equivalent (SER), is a complex eye condition caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Individuals with strong positive or negative values of SER require spectacles or other approaches for vision correction. Common genetic risk factors have been identified by genome-wide association studies (GWAS), but a great part of the refractive error heritability is still missing. Some of this heritability may be explained by rare variants (minor allele frequency [MAF] ≤ 0.01.). We performed multiple gene-based association tests of mean Spherical Equivalent with rare variants in exome array data from the Consortium for Refractive Error and Myopi…