Comparison of Amplitude of Accommodation, Near Point of Convergence and Fusion Ability of Islamic Fasters Before, During and After Respected Month of Ramadan

Dear Editor, Fasting during Ramadan month is an Islamic obligation which may have side effects on vision of fasting Muslims. Previous studies showed that there was no relationship between Islamic fasting and myopia and changes in intraocular pressure due to fasting in healthy person were not considerable. In this month, an increased need for visual tasks such as studying Holy Quran, changes in food habits and metabolic conditions necessitate investigations on possible visual changes during this month. Since researches on direct impact of Islamic fasting on vision are few and not conclusive, this study evaluates the amplitude of accommodation (AA), near point of convergence (NPC), positive and negative fusional vergences (PFV and NFV, respectively) of Islamic fasting during Ramadan month. In our cross sectional study, AA, NPC, PFV and NFV of 30 male students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences were measured during three days before Ramadan month, the middle three days and the three days after this month. Examination time before and after Ramadan was during breakfast and lunch time and from lunch to dinner time while in Ramadan, it was in mid-time between dawn and breakfast meals. To consider nutritional status of subjects over one week before each visit, the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) was completed. The mean age and average fasting experience were 23.9 and 10 years, respectively. As seen in Table 1, according to paired t test analysis, AA reduced and NPC increased significantly in Ramadan than before (p<0.01); but there was no significant difference between their values before and after Ramadan. Despite the statistical significance of AA reduction, a change of at least 1.50 D is needed to be considered a significant variation on repeated measurements of accommodative amplitude; smaller changes were accepted as expected variations. On the other hand during Ramadan, the mean AA of the right and left eyes was more than the minimum expected, based on Hoffstetter formula. Thus, despite the reduction of monocu-