An expert in eye management and treatment has declared that the colour of the eyes does not necessarily impose negative effect on people’s vision.
The Director of Topaz Eye Clinic, Dr Obiageli Okpala, said the coloured part of the eye had a pigmentation that determined the colour of the eye.
She said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Awka on Wednesday, that human eye colour originate with three genes, two of which were known as oculocutaneous albinism II (OCA2) gene and HERC2(HECT, as well as RLD Domain, containing E3 Ubiquitin Protein Ligase 2.
According to her, it is the multiple genes involved in eye colour formation that account for the most common eye colour such as green, brown, and blue.
Okpala said the different eye colours in people therefore did not necessarily affect their vision, as wrongly perceived, and that the formation was not a 100 per cent predictable occurrence.
She reiterated that eye colour did not have negative affect on people’s vision, but that slight difference did exist in case of albinism because of their albino nature.
She further explained that eye colour was not just a blend of the parents’ eye colours, as found in mixing paint and suggesting that each parent had two pairs of genes on each chromosome.
“We have about seven types of eye colours namely brown, blue, green, amber, gray, hazel, and red,” she said, adding that the most common eye colours in the world were brown, green and blue.
“Brown eye colour is not only the most common colour amongst blacks and Caucasians, but in the world population,” she noted.
Okpala said children could have completely different eye colours than either of their parents, but if both parents had brown eyes, it was most likely that their children would also have brown eyes.
She stressed that a scenario in which one parent had brown eyes and the other blue eyes, still did not automatically produce a brown-eyed child.
Okpala said most of the genes associated with eye colour were involved in the production, transportation or storage of a pigment called melanin.
She advised the public to develop the habit of holding a comprehensive eye care for all ages annually, as the eye is the lamp of the body.
Source: NAN
