A Comparative Study on the Effects of Vintage Nonpharmacological Techniques in Reducing Myopia (Bates Eye Exercise Therapy vs. Trataka Yoga Kriya)
clinical trial · 2018
LINK
SUMMARY
A peer-reviewed controlled study (International Journal of Yoga, 2018, DOI 10.4103/ijoy.IJOY_59_16, PMID 29343934), confirmed against the Crossref API record (authors Tiwari, Shaik, Aparna, Brundavanam; volume 11, issue 1, pages 72-76, published January 2018) and against the official PubMed E-utilities abstract endpoint (fetched directly 7 July 2026; the root PubMed/PMC HTML pages are intermittently fragile for automated verification, so the E-utilities record is used as the fetchable record). The study directly tested Bates eye-exercise therapy, the same method Hauser promoted in his 1932 book, and found no significant improvement in refractive error or visual acuity from Bates exercises. Cited to ground the `refuted` verification_status on the Bates-method claim with an actual controlled study, rather than resting on Gardner's 1957 mockery alone.
NOTES
This 2018 controlled study in the International Journal of Yoga directly tested the Bates method of eye exercises — the same technique Gayelord Hauser promoted in his 1932 book — against refractive error in myopic subjects, and found it not significantly effective at reducing refractive error or improving visual acuity. It is cited in this bundle to ground the hauser-bates-method-eyesight claim’s refuted status in an actual peer-reviewed controlled trial of the method, rather than resting solely on Martin Gardner’s 1957 skeptical commentary.