“The lack of pigment is also what can make those eyes potentially more sensitive to light.

“That’s how their eyes get the blue color, much like how the sky gets its blue color. “People with blue eyes have decreased melanin pigment in the front layer of their iris, causing light to scatter and absorb some of the longer wavelengths of light that come in,” says Usiwoma Abugo, MD, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology and ophthalmologist at Virginia Eye Consultants, in the Norfolk, Virginia, area. People with blue eyes have a higher tendency toward intraocular straylight, a phenomenon in which light passing through the eye is scattered, resulting in an increased glare, hazy vision, and decreased contrast, a study of European car drivers found. What else do we know about eye color and health risks? Blue Eyes May Be More Sensitive to Light For example, an analysis published in 2022 in the journal Cancer Causes and Control found that blue or light-colored eyes and hazel, green, or medium-colored eyes are associated with a higher risk of two common types of skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma (but not melanoma), than dark brown eyes. While you can’t 100 percent predict health outcomes or quality of vision based on eye color alone, some studies suggest certain health risks may be related to eye color. Eye doctors already know they can learn a lot about both physical and mental health by looking deep into the retina.īut what about a more superficial look at the eyes, namely at the colored part of the eye, or the iris? Scientists, on the other hand, are more interested in whether they’re windows to our health. Poets romanticize eyes as the windows to the soul.

Green eyeballs