We inherit the color of our eyes from the ancestors - whether they will be green, blue or brown depends on the pigment located in the iris. It turns out that this is not only of aesthetic significance: there is a correlation between a certain eye color and the occurrence of visual defects and eye diseases.
Melanin, the pigment responsible for the color of eyes, skin and hair, is located in the iris. However, it occurs in different proportions and slightly different density in each person. It is estimated that nearly 90 percent. of people have brown eyes, 7 percent. green, 2 percent gray, while only 1 percent. blue.
As Grzegorz Romanik, optician and optometrist as well as an expert of the National Chamber of Optical Crafts explains: - People with gray, blue or green eye color genetically "show" the presence of a small amount of melanin, while the brown or dark color indicates a high pigment content in the iris.
Does eye color increase the risk of visual impairment and eye disease? It turns out that it is. The amount of pigment in the iris does not matter when it comes to myopia or strabismus, but studies show that the dark color of the iris increases the risk of glaucoma and cataracts - people with brown eyes are the most likely to suffer from the latter.
The bright color of the iris is also twice as high risk of macular degeneration (AMD) - it is a chronic disease that usually occurs in people over 50 and involves damage to the retina, which may eventually deteriorate vision or even loss of vision. The bright iris cannot block ultraviolet rays as much as the dark iris. The research results on this subject were published in the specialist journal Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology.
The amount of melanin in the iris of the eye also determines the susceptibility to other diseases - not only eye diseases. For example, people with light eyes are more likely to develop melanoma - both green eyes and blue eyes have little pigment.
An interesting relationship was also shown in a study published in "Epidemiology Cancer, Biomarkers & Prevention": it turned out that people with blue eyes are more likely to developvarious types of pigmented marks.
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