[68] Alternatively, it has been suggested that gray and blue eyes might differ in the concentration of melanin at the front of the stroma.[68]. In the US only 1 out of 6 people have a light (blue) eye colour. The color of ones eye is perhaps one of the first things people observe when they see each other. [102], "Iris color" redirects here. [3]:9. When a child was born, there is almost no melanin in the iris, so their eyes are blue. Because blue eyes contain less melanin than most other eye colors, they may be more at risk of certain damage. As the child develops, melanocytes (cells found within the iris of human eyes, as well as skin and hair follicles) slowly begin to produce melanin. In these cases, the only color seen is the red from the hemoglobin of the blood in the capillaries of the iris. Cataracts are very common as you get older. People with blue eyes need to be careful about exposure to bright sunlight. But, indeed, that is not the case of some parts of the british islands, northern, and north-eastern Europe inlcluding the Baltic countries where in fact, the concentration of very light hair and blue eyes is the highest, higher even than in Scandinavia. Hazel eyes are most common in the Middle East, North Africa, Brazil, and people of Spanish heritage. Thats true for people of every eye color. In 2016, scientists found that our pale skin complexion is inherited from just one man who lived thousands of years ago. SEE RELATED: How color contact lenses can make anyone's eyes blue. [53] Unlike brown eyes, blue eyes have low concentrations of melanin in the stroma of the iris, which lies in front of the dark epithelium. "Blue eyes are seen as powerful. While blue eyes may be rare, they're among the most common eye colors at birth. Blue eyes percentage: 50-80. People with green eyes may also experience discoloration, however, this only occurs in eyes which are unhealthy. [73], Although the deep blue eyes of some people such as Elizabeth Taylor can appear purple or violet at certain times, "true" violet-colored eyes occur only due to albinism. (The name of the gene is derived from the disorder it causes, oculocutaneous albinism type II.) [22] Observing the iris of an infant from the side using only transmitted light with no reflection from the back of the iris, it is possible to detect the presence or absence of low levels of melanin. Blue Eyes - 8 to 10%. Home Improvement / story. Definitions of the eye color hazel vary: it is sometimes considered to be synonymous with light brown or gold, as in the color of a hazelnut shell. How eye color develops and why it changes. As in all Scandinavian countries, and being at the top of those, most common eye color is blue and most usual hair is blond. January 2008. American Academy of Ophthalmology. Just 2.2 percent of male CEOs had blond hair, a 2005 study found. One thing that truly sets people apart is their eye color. First, one can have blue eyes as a result of a genetic mutation. If your current heating system yields cold hands and frozen toes it might be time to upgrade. Some medical conditions affect ones eye color. The polymorphisms may be in an OCA2 regulatory sequence, where they may influence the expression of the gene product, which in turn affects pigmentation. Blue eyes are caused by a gene mutation. Worldwide, fewer than 9% of people have blue eyes. [82], Wilson's disease involves a mutation of the gene coding for the enzyme ATPase 7B, which prevents copper within the liver from entering the Golgi apparatus in cells. A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. In cases of central Heterochromia, the irises are identical, but there is a ring of different colors around the pupil. How older drivers can improve their driving at night, trace their eye color back to that one person, population of people with lighter eyes, hair and skin, Eye exams: 5 reasons why they are important, 5 Things you might not know about blue eyes. Eyeglass temples: How do you know if they're the right length? Similarly, people with hazel, gray and green eyes have varying quantities of tint in the front layer. Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up. The color can be from the very pale blond (caused by a patchy, scarce distribution of pigment) to reddish "strawberry" blond or golden-brownish ("sandy") blond . In most people, the back layer has at least some brown pigment in it, even if their eyes don't look brown. Blue eyes as a risk factor for type 1 diabetes. Gray eyes: A rare and beautiful eye color. Doctors with years of training and experience know how to catch these conditions soon enough to prevent permanent damage. Medicaid: Eligibility and Vision Benefits. Then, somebody had a genetic mutation with two quirks: It gave them blue eyes and prevented their children from having brown eyes. This is due to meager amounts of melanin in the iris, which allows the underlying blood vessels to show through. The amount of damage depends on wavelength and exposure time . Whether you have blue, brown, green, or hazel eyes, always take good care of your eyes, it will keep them healthy for years to come! Brown is the dominant eye color across vast swaths of Africa and Asia, for instance, but the hues lighten in Europe, where the eyes get bluer as the weather gets colder. Most researchers believe that blue-eyed individuals may be more dominant among certain populations and less present in others. [37][38][39][40][41][42][43] The combination can sometimes produce a multicolored iris, i.e., an eye that is light brown/amber near the pupil and charcoal or dark green on the outer part of the iris (or vice versa) when observed in sunlight. Contact lenses can give your eyes a hazel appearance. Photochromic lenses are another way to protect blue eyes from UV radiation. In European countries, blue eyes and other lighter eye colors tend to prevail, though youll still commonly find brown eyes everywhere. In their study, Eiberg and his team recruited 800 blue-eyed men and women across different countries. The iris is the colored part of the eye. [12] A specific mutation within the HERC2 gene, a gene that regulates OCA2 expression, is partly responsible for blue eyes. Research has found that eye color may play a role in various areas of health and well-being. All blue-eyed people have one ancestor in common, born around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. A common cause in females with heterochromia is X-inactivation, which can result in a number of heterochromatic traits, such as calico cats. [10][11] However, OCA2 gene polymorphism, close to proximal 5' regulatory region, explains most human eye-color variation. [66] 56% of Slovenes have blue/green eyes. Effortless urban style, with expert craftsmanship - clothing, shoes & apparel for men & women from rag & bone. developed a graded system based on the predominant iris color and the amount of brown or yellow pigment present. [93] There are also other studies that challenge these findings. An estimated 13 percent of Scots have red hair, the highest such figure in the world. Click to read the article and view the infographic. This is why regular eye exams repay your investment many times over. That's more in line with the hair color's natural occurrence. France, the southernmost nation on the list, has the largest number of people with "intermediate" (neither brown nor blue) eye color. So, there's less worry of a vitamin D deficiency for redheads. This occurs in humans and certain breeds of domesticated animals and affects less than 1 percent of the world's population. This would be analogous to the change in the color of the sky, from the blue given by the Rayleigh scattering of sunlight by small gas molecules when the sky is clear, to the gray caused by Mie scattering of large water droplets when the sky is cloudy. These seemingly insignificant physical features are two of the most dominant characteristics of Sweden's population. In other words, it's impossible to know for sure if your children will have blue eyes or any other color. The color of our eyes depends on how much melanin is present in the iris. Most eye color changes have been observed or reported in the Caucasian population with hazel and amber eyes. Are contact lenses a good choice for kids? In fact, more than half of all Americans age 80 or older either have cataracts or have had surgery to get rid of cataracts. The most common eye color is dark brown in Africa, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. 27% with blue . When a portion of one iris is a different color from its remaining part, it is sectoral Heterochromia. As we have noted, blonde hair and light eyes depend on the amount of melanin extracted. Globally, brown is the most common eye color. [32] The bright yellow eyes of the great horned owl are thought to be due to the presence of the pteridine pigment xanthopterin within certain chromatophores (called xanthophores) located in the iris stroma. Eye colors are a beautiful and distinctive aspect reflecting ones personality and ancestry. SEE RELATED: Is blue the rarest eye color? How older drivers can improve their driving at night, researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Schedule an appointment with a local eye doctor, How color contact lenses can make anyone's eyes blue. Iceland, the northernmost country of the bunch, has the greatest percentage of people with blue eyes. Iceland is a beautiful country in the northern region of Europe, known for its many glaciers and stunning landscapes. [26] Hazel eyes are more common in Spaniards, North Africa, the Middle East, and Brazil. Blue eyes have been common across Europe since prehistoric times. 2000-2023 AAV Media, LLC. Gray eyes are common in parts of Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and among the Algerian Shawia people in Northwest Africa. This part surrounds the pupil -- the small black hole in the eye's middle that regulates the light. An iris with little melanin appears blue, while those with more little melanin appear green or hazel. In contrast, more than 50 percent of the global population is believed to have brown eyes. 2. Although people with lighter eye color are generally more sensitive to light because they have less pigment in the iris to protect them from sunlight, there is little to no evidence that eye color has a direct impact on vision qualities such as visual acuity. Priscilla Vu, MD, is a board-certified ophthalmologist. While eye color is not a defining characteristic of a person, it can be interesting to see how the distribution of different colors varies from place to place. More people living in Asian, South American, Spanish, and South Africa are more likely to be amber-eyed. The website WorldAtlas.com takes a stab at estimating the breakdown of eye colors worldwide. Scientists believe that all blue-eyed people can be traced back to a common ancestor, who probably had a genetic mutation that reduced their melanin in the iris. [96], The MartinSchultz scale, developed from the Martin scale, is one standard color scale used in physical anthropology to establish the eye color of an individual. Having blue eyes has its advantages. Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor. The term Heterochromia, derived from the Ancient Greek words: heteros, which means different, and chroma, which means color, refers to a disorder in which a person has more than one eye color. Amber eyes are a solid color with a strong yellowish/golden and russet/coppery tint, which may be due to the yellow pigment called lipochrome (also found in green eyes). So don't be concerned if your child begins to lose their baby-blue eye color. Which country has the most people with blue eyes? If you inherit blue-eye genes from your parents, it means that your eyes will have less of a pigment called melanin in them. A number of causes are responsible, including genetic, such as chimerism, Horner's syndrome and Waardenburg syndrome. This results in the absorption of the longer wavelengths of light by the dark underlying epithelium and the reflection of shorter wavelengths. Hazel (sometimes grouped with amber) Green. [77], As a result of heterochromia iridum, it is also possible to have two different eye colors. Icelandic people demonstrate a strong national pride in preserving their culture. A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of your eye (the clear part of the eye that helps to focus light). The incidence of blue eyes continues to decline among American children. Grey 0%. One more usual hair color is red, and also green eye color, being among the rarest in the world. "They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA.". Brown melanin is the only pigment that exists in the eye; there is no pigment for hazel or green or blue. Amber eye color is commonly found in Pakistan and the Balkan region, as well as in Southern France, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and Hungary, and in fewer numbers in the Middle East, Colombia, and the Southern Cone region. Estonia is the country most known for its fair-skinned, blue-eyed population, followed closely by Finland. Blue eye color is a recessive trait, but brown-eyed parents can still produce a blue-eyed child if both parents carry the genes for blue eyes. In the same way, you can get melanoma on your skin, you can also get melanoma in your eye. [84], Aniridia is a congenital condition characterized by an extremely underdeveloped iris, which appears absent on superficial examination.[86]. In theory, blue eyes may have protected a person from acquiring vision disorders caused by these periods. For example, instead of blue as in humans, autosomal recessive eye color in the skink species Corucia zebrata is black, and the autosomal dominant color is yellow-green. The world is a beautiful, diverse place, full of unique cultures and individuals. Favorite. Blue light may also damage your retinas. Most people have brown tint in the back layer, but lighter eyes have less tint in the front layer. [24], Almost all mammals have brown or darkly-pigmented irises. A cataract is a clouding of the eye's lens. The number of cylindrical cells is more than the number of color receptors and reaches about 120 million; cone cells, which are smaller in number than light receptors, have color vision and are divided into three distinct categories, each of which recognizes one of the colors blue, red, and green, allowing the individual to distinguish colors. This one person with a genetic mutation had children, and the trait was passed to the next generation. Eye color results from the amount of pigment (melanin) you have in the front layer (stroma). 8. Eye color as a risk factor for acquired sensorineural hearing loss: A review. [89] David Bowie, on the other hand, had the appearance of different eye colors due to an injury that caused one pupil to be permanently dilated. About half of people living in the U.S. and a higher population in Africa, and Asia are brown-eyed. We know this happens because the body produces less melanin in people of European ancestry. Unlike hazel eyes, which appear to shift colors, amber eyes have a solid gold hue. They studied the genes that coded blue eyes in all of these individuals. MDQL won't back down. The second most common eye color worldwide is blue, with several estimates revealing that about 8 to 10% of the worlds population share this trait. Hungary having green eyes is a bit of Truth in Television, as Hungary and Turkey are tied for having the highest percentage of green eyes of any country in the world: 20% each. Unsurprisingly, another Scandinavian country has placed itself third on our list of countries with the highest percentage of blond hair citizens. Moreover, a gray iris may indicate uveitis, while those with blue, green, or gray eyes are at an increased risk of uveal melanoma. Gray eyes can also be found among the Algerian Shawia people[69] of the Aurs Mountains in Northwest Africa, in the Middle East/West Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia. [14] As of 2006[update], one out of every six Americans, or 16.6% of the total US population, has blue eyes,[65] including 22.3% of whites. Speaking scientifically, blue eye color and natural blond hair are cause of recessive genes (actually alleles, which are forms of a gene) combination, as opposed to dominant genes which are characterised by darker eye and hair colors (of course, recessive and dominant genes are not only responsible for eye and hair color, but for other genetic inheritance as well). Adult eye color is usually established between 3 and 6 months of age, though this can be later. Blue eyes have small amounts of melanin while brown eyes are rich in melanin. Blue eyes actually didn't exist 10,000 years ago. [55] Eiberg and colleagues suggested in a study published in Human Genetics that a mutation in the 86th intron of the HERC2 gene, which is hypothesized to interact with the OCA2 gene promoter, reduced expression of OCA2 with subsequent reduction in melanin production. Amber eyes may also contain amounts of very light gold-ish gray. Most Asian and African children are born with brown and black eyes. [3]:9[6] The result is a "Tyndall blue" structural color that varies with external lighting conditions. The green color is from a combination of a blue hue from Rayleigh scattering and "yellow" from the yellow pigment called lipochrome. While researchers have not pinpointed the exact cause yet, they do know that besides age, women with fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes have a significantly higher chance of developing macular degeneration. Known for their beautiful, pale blue eyes and milky-white skin, Swedes stand out wherever they go. [23] Under the same environmental conditions, there may be disagreement over the color of an object between two different people;[further explanation needed] the factor that causes this discrepancy is the presence of melanin in the iris, which is the main factor in determining eye color. A study in Rotterdam (2009) found that it was possible to predict eye color with more than 90% accuracy for brown and blue using just six SNPs. Around 17 per cent of people have blue eyes, and when combined with 1-2 per cent having red hair, the odds of having both traits are around 0.17 per cent. Follow. While limited, there is some research showing that blue eyes may protect you against seasonal affective disorder. Blue eyes with a brown spot, green eyes, and gray eyes are caused by an entirely different part of the genome. "Why Edinburgh residents are likely to be blue-eyed", "Genetic determinants of hair, eye and skin pigmentation in Europeans", "Eye Color Percentage for Across the Globe", "Is there any difference in the photobiological properties of melanins isolated from human blue and brown eyes? Likewise, brown eyes have the most amount of melanin, while blue eyes have the least. Researchers at the American Academy of Opthalmology have stated that everyone on planet earth had brown eyes around 10,000 years ago. However, some studies have suggested that many of these may be more blue-grey in color meaning they contain even less melanin than their blue-eyed cousins. Challenge these findings is usually established between 3 and 6 months of age, though can. European ancestry or darkly-pigmented irises world is a beautiful country in the iris know if they 're right... 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