Blue eye color is more attractive to most people, partly due to the perception of beauty created by the media and partly because of its rarity. But most people do not know that blue eye color can have disadvantages compared to brown eyes. Whether your eyes are blue or brown; Your eye color is determined by the genetic inheritance you inherit from your parents and is passed down from generation to generation. However, sometimes genetic variations or genetic mutations passed on by our ancestors can lead to surprising results.
Many people have misconceptions about blue eyes, as a result of the knowledge they have gained from a high school biology course. However, genetics, which is a very broad branch of science about examining the factors inherited from our parents, such as our eye color, is not a simple and monotonous science as it is thought, and there are many wrongs known to be true regarding eye color.
In order to eliminate some of these mistakes, we have compiled interesting information about people with blue eye color and blue eyes in our content.
How does blue eye color occur?
All eye colors depend on the amount of a pigment called ‘melanin’ in the colored part of the eye called the iris. In other words, the perception that “blue and green eyes do not have pigment” is wrong. Compared to blue eyes, brown eyes have more melanin in the back layer of the iris, sometimes even in the front layer, which causes the eye to absorb more light, making the eye color darker. Eyes without melanin in the iris layers scatter light instead of collecting it, which reflects more blue light, making the eye color appear blue.
Where a child receives genetic information, such as eye color, is from its parents’ chromosomes. Different genetic information from each parent also causes differences in the amount of melanin. There is also a special region on our chromosomes for determining eye color. In these special regions, there are special protein genes that help determine eye color. The higher the protein content, the higher the melanin intake. Although melanin uptake is controlled by a single gene, other genes also have an effect. Therefore, parents with brown eyes can have children with blue eyes, and parents with blue eyes can have children with brown eyes.
So how true is the claim that ‘blue eye color can be unhealthy’?
Whether eye color is related to certain health problems is still a subject of research by researchers, but in line with the information obtained to date, it is thought that blue eyes are more prone to health problems. The main reason for this is the lack of melanin. Diseases such as eye cancer, diabetes, macular degeneration and hearing loss are thought to be more common in people with blue eyes.
There is no certainty about these diseases that blue-eyed people should worry about. In particular, you may not be able to make a connection between hearing loss and blue eye color. This information comes from the fact that people with light-colored eyes, who are only exposed to loud noises, suffer more pronounced hearing loss.
Interesting information about blue eye color:
- Only 8% of the world’s population has blue eyes.
- May have a common ancestor of blue-eyed humans.
- Actually, we all had lighter eyes when we were born.
- Although there is a brown pigment, there is no blue pigment.
- Blue eyes are more sensitive to light.
- Contrary to popular belief, blue eyes are not recessive.
- People with blue eyes have a higher risk of alcoholism.
- The perception that your child will have blue eyes because you have blue eyes is wrong.
Only 8% of the world’s population has blue eyes.
If you have blue eyes, you actually belong to a very elite group. Most brown people have thought at least once, ‘I wish I had colored eyes’, and people with colored eyes are more attractive to most of us. Maybe this is because there are so few blue eyes.
Also, blue-eyed people are most common in Northern European countries. Finland is the country with the highest number of people with blue eyes at 89%.
May have a common ancestor of people with blue eyes.
According to a study conducted at the University of Copenhagen, blue eye color emerged as a result of a genetic mutation estimated to have occurred in a single person in the Black Sea Region about 10 thousand years ago. is being considered. For this reason, it is thought that all blue-eyed people on Earth are descended from a genetic mutation, or ancestry, created by a single person.
Actually, we all had lighter eyes when we were born.
When babies are born, it is sometimes unpredictable what their eye color will be in the future, because although blue eye color is one of the rarest eye colors, it is encountered quite frequently in babies. Most babies are born with a lighter-than-normal eye color because the human eye does not have the full amount of pigment at birth. As the melanin hormone increases over time, the eye color darkens in most people as they grow.
Although there is brown pigment, there is no blue pigment.
We mentioned that our eye color depends on the amount of melanin hormone in our iris layer. Blue eyes don’t get their color from pigment like brown eyes. Just as the reason why the seas appear blue is because they scatter incoming light, the same is true for blue eyes.
Blue eyes are more sensitive to light.
According to studies, the melanin hormone in the iris is thought to protect the back of the eye from UV rays from the sun. Blue eyes; Since green and brown eyes contain less melanin, light sensitivity, called photophobia, is more common.
Contrary to popular belief, blue eyes are not recessive.
One of the most common misconceptions is that blue eye is a recessive gene because it is found in a small number of people. However, the blue eye gene is also an effective gene that can create eyes of other colors such as brown and green. In short, brown-eyed people can have blue-eyed children, too.
People with blue eyes have a higher risk of alcoholism.
According to a study in a science journal, people with blue eyes are more likely to develop an addiction to alcohol. In the study, the proportion of Europeans and Americans with blue eyes and alcoholism was higher compared to people with brown eyes. However, there is no scientific certainty about this.
The perception that your child will have blue eyes because you have blue eyes is wrong.
We also mentioned that blue eyes are not recessive. Most of us learned about the recessive-dominant gene event in our biology classes and that this event is dependent on 2 genes, but in fact, determining a child’s eye color is more complicated than that because eye color is determined by the effect of 16 different genes, not the effect of 2 genes. In short, your child may have brown eyes even if you and your partner have blue eyes.
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