What is color blindness? Causes and cures

What is color blindness?

Color blindness is also known as "color deficiency," a condition in which you cannot distinguish colors normally.
Most people affected by color blindness may not be able to distinguish:

• Different shades of red and green
• Different shades of blue and yellow
• Any color

Depending on how bad the color blindness is, the above colors may be hard to see or not seen at all.

What is the cause of the illness?

Color blindness occurs when one or more cone cells are absent, inactive, or detect a different color than normal. Due to mutations in the OPN1LW gene, OPN1MW and OPN1SW cause forms of color vision deficiency. Proteins made from these genes play an essential role in color vision. Complete color blindness occurs when all three cones are absent.
Mild color blindness occurs when all three cones are present but one is not functioning properly. It detects a different color than normal.

According to research, color blindness is caused by several factors:

Hereditary disorders:

Color blindness is a genetic disease that is linked to a pair of sex chromosomes. This pair is XX for women and XY for men. The OPN1LW and OPN1MW genes are located on the X chromosome, which is one of the two sex chromosomes.

The disease arises due to a mutation or lack of a gene on the X chromosome that causes disturbances in the light-sensitive cells in the eye. Then color discrimination is affected.

Statistics show that the rate of color blindness in men is much higher than that of women. Women only get this disease if they have two colorblind genes: one from their mother and one from their father. If a woman has only one disease gene, it doesn't matter. Because the color gene on the other chromosome is enough to overwhelm the disease gene. A son who receives this gene from his mother cannot distinguish colors because the Y chromosome does not have a dominant color gene to dominate the color blindness gene, in males (only one X chromosome). One genetic change in each cell is enough to cause this condition.

Due to illness

Several underlying diseases can cause a color deficit, such as diabetes, glaucoma, macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, chronic alcoholism, leukemia, and sickle cell anemia.
Eyes can get better if the underlying disease is treated.

Some drugs:

Certain drugs can alter color vision when the body is attempting to treat a disease.For example, some drugs are used to treat heart disease, high blood pressure, infections, neurological disorders, and psychological problems.

Aging:

As you age, your ability to see colors also decreases.

Chemistry:

Exposure to certain chemicals in the workplace, such as carbon disulfide and fertilizers, can cause loss of color vision. If we work around these chemicals, we need to pay a lot of attention to eye care and eye protection.

Color Blindness Treatment

There is generally no cure for color blindness. There are special contact lenses and glasses that may help.

For hereditary color blindness, your doctor may recommend glasses for color blindness. These glasses have filters found in contact lenses or lenses that enhance color perception.

In the event that your color blindness is caused by a medical condition, your doctor will recommend treating that condition first. After curing those diseases, your color blindness may improve.

If color blindness is interfering with your life, seek medical attention and consult with your doctor.