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• Orange and rust specks in the iris, can be prone to depression
• Blue eyes. “Clinically speaking, people with blue or light-colored irises do tend to be more light-sensitive,” says Ruth Williams, MD, president-elect of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and an ophthalmologist at the Wheaton Eye Clinic in Chicago. “This is likely due to the sparsity of light-absorbing pigment in the eye.” The more pigment you have, the less light gets through the iris.
• Gray, green, and blue eyes. Lighter-colored eyes may mean an increased risk for cancer. Because lighter eyes have less pigment to protect them from harmful ultraviolet rays, it’s true that light-eyed people have a greater lifetime risk for melanoma of the uvea, the middle layer of the eye, than their dark-eyed peers. “People with light iris color need to be diligent in wearing UV-protected sunglasses,” advises Dr. Williams. Melanoma of the uvea is an extremely rare cancer that affects the eye in about six of every million adults in the United States each year, and it is estimated that the incidence of the disease in black Americans, who are usually brown-eyed, is less than one-eighth the incidence in white Americans. In addition, although this is not directly related to vision, people with gray, green, or blue eyes tend to be fair-skinned and are at greater risk for skin cancers in general.
• Brown eyes. A study done at the University of Louisville showed that people with brown eyes have slightly better reaction times when participating in certain athletic activities than light-eyed people. However, don’t use this small study to rationalize picking only brown-eyed people for your softball team. “In my experience, I couldn’t say we can judge performance based on eye color,” says optometrist Guadalupe Mejia, OD, of the University of Louisville.