Is color blindness a hereditary disease? & bull; hello healthy

Some people may have a medical condition that causes the eyes to not see colors normally. This condition is known as color blindness. People who are color blind may not be able to see the colors of the flowers in the garden or the green of the trees. Actually, how can this disease occur? Is color blindness a hereditary disease?

What is color blindness?

Color blindness is a condition in which your vision is unable to see colors naturally. This condition is sometimes referred to as color deficiency. About 250 million people in the world have this disorder.

People with color blindness cannot distinguish certain colors. Usually, the colors that are difficult to distinguish for color blind people are green, red, and sometimes blue.

This condition sometimes will not cause significant health problems. Most sufferers will get used to this situation over time.

However, in some people, color blindness can affect daily activities. For example, people who are color blind will have difficulty distinguishing the color of food, medicines, or traffic signs.

Color blindness also causes sufferers to have limited career options. Some jobs such as pilot, army, and police require candidates to be free from color blindness.

Is color blindness a hereditary disease?

Most cases of color blindness that are found are genetic conditions. That means, people with color blindness get this condition through family descent.

This disease is more common in men. However, in some cases, women also have the opportunity to experience this condition.

Color blindness is a hereditary disease that is usually inherited from parents. Generally, this disease is passed from mother to son.

This is because women are usually the carriers of these genetic disorders. Women who carry genetic disorders do not necessarily develop color blindness. However, it is possible that she will give birth to a baby with this condition.

Furthermore, men who are color blind have little chance of passing the disease on to their children. Unless, he has a female partner who is the carrier of the genetic disorder color blindness.

However, it is possible that color blindness occurs due to certain diseases (acquired). Some of the health conditions that have the potential to cause color blindness are diabetes, glaucoma, and multiple sclerosis.

How does color blindness become a hereditary disease?

Color blindness is inherited on the 23rd chromosome. This chromosome also plays a role in determining gender.

Chromosomes are structures that contain genes. These genes are in charge of instructing the formation of cells, tissues and organs in the body.

The 23rd chromosome consists of two parts. Female chromosomes have two X chromosomes, while male chromosomes consist of X and Y chromosomes.

The gene defect that causes color blindness is only found on the X chromosome. This means that men who suffer from color blindness have a gene abnormality only on their X chromosome.

Meanwhile, a woman will experience color blindness if there are abnormalities on both X chromosomes.

Women who only have the gene for color blindness on one of their X chromosomes are referred to as colorblind gene carrier, but he is not color blind.

If later the child born is a boy, maybe he is color blind because the mother passed down the X chromosome of the color blind gene. However, it is also possible that the boy is not color blind if the X chromosome that is inherited is a normal chromosome.

Meanwhile, if the baby born is female, color blindness can only attack the girl if the mother and father are both color blind. The alias, which is passed on to the daughter is two X chromosomes color blind from the father and the mother.

However, if the father is not color blind, the daughter will only get the X chromosome of the color blind gene from the mother. This means that the girl will only be the carrier of the color blind gene.