Blue, brown or green?: Eye color indicates disease risk.

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Blue, brown, yellow or green: Eye color is an important part of everyone’s appearance. But only a few know that the color of the iris, also known as the iris, is linked to a predisposition to certain eye diseases.

Eye color can be quite relevant in daily clinical practice, as experts from the German Society of Ophthalmology (DOG) point this out to the “German Health Portal”. Ophthalmologists are doctors who specialize in ophthalmology.

Without melanin eyes stay very light

A person’s eye color is determined by the concentration of melanin in the iris. Color also determines skin and hair color. And: It protects against the effects of the sun.

In terms of the eye, the melanin always has the same brownish color, “even in green and blue eyes there are no other dyes”, said Claus Cursiefen (55), Director of the Ophthalmology Center at University Hospital Cologne and General Secretary DOG.

The fact that not everyone has brown eyes is due to the light-refracting effects that come into play with different levels of melanin. Without melanin, the eyes remain very light, which can be observed, for example, in people with albinism. People with very light colored eyes are much more sensitive to light.

Aggressive tumor may occur

However, low melanin levels can lead to even worse outcomes. The likelihood of developing uveal melanoma, an aggressive tumor of the choroid, is significantly increased in people with low melanin levels. “It is found 20 to 30 times more often in people of European descent than in people of Asian or African descent,” says Nikolaos Bechrakis, 58, DOG President and Director of the University Eye Clinic in Essen.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), also known as “retinal calcification”, is more likely to develop in people with light-colored eyes. There are studies showing that this disease related to AMD is more common in Europeans.

People with black eyes are more likely to have cataracts

People with dark eyes are at a disadvantage in terms of cataracts. The disease develops in brown-eyed people two to four times more often than in blue-eyed people.

“One theory is that the more light the iris absorbs, the higher the temperature in the anterior chamber of the eye,” says Cursiefen. Meaning: The darker the iris, the higher the temperature load, which has been shown to promote cataract formation. Heat-induced cataract is a typical occupational disease for welders, for example.

Rejection reactions and other complications are also more common in people with dark eyes after a corneal transplant. “Here, melanin’s influence on the immune system in the anterior chamber of the eye is suspected,” says Cursiefen. It is believed that the dark pigment promotes inflammatory processes. (nad)

Source : Blick