Your eye color could be saying a lot more about you than you realize, and it goes beyond simply the shade that you see in the mirror.
There may be something in your glass
Blue eyes and alcohol intake don’t sound like they could be related at all. But maybe they are. One study involved looking at 10,860 white male prisoners and 1,862 white women from a national survey. They found that the lighter-eyed people reported drinking more alcohol.
That wasn’t the only research, as another study of 1,263 European Americans found that people with blue eyes seemed to have stronger links to alcohol dependence. That doesn’t mean having blue eyes automatically makes you a drinker. But there may be a little connection.
Childhood may come with a quieter phase
One study found that there may be a disadvantage to having blue eyes. Namely, young boys with blue eyes may be more reserved in preschool. The researchers looked at 152 white children aged around four-and-a-half, then compared the blue-eyed kids to the brown-eyed ones.
They found that parents and teachers tended to rate the blue-eyed boys as a little more socially afraid than the brown-eyed boys. There wasn’t the same pattern for the girls. They didn’t repeat this study with adults, but even so, it’s a strange link.
Your ears may have an unexpected pigmentation connection
You wouldn’t think eye color has anything to do with your ears. But maybe it does. One study involved 130 participants working around similar levels of workplace noise. Interestingly enough, the study found differences between light, medium, and dark-eyed groups at certain sound frequencies.
These differences were particularly clear around the 4 and 6 kHz levels. Those with lighter eyes seemed to have higher rates of hearing loss around loud noise exposure than those with darker eyes. It’s probably because people with darker eyes tend to have more melanin in the inner ear.
Your bedtime may run a little later
Turns out, your eye color could say a lot about the time you fall asleep. One study of 1,102 adults in the United States and Canada found that people with darker eyes often slept later than those with light eyes.
The darker-eyed participants had an average sleep midpoint of around 3:30 a.m., while those with lighter eyes were at 3:15 a.m. The darker-eyed people were also more likely to be night owls than the other group.
Cold pain has produced an unusual pattern
Let’s get one thing straight, freezing cold water makes everyone miserable. But one group of people might feel that pain more strongly. One study found that people with darker-colored eyes were more sensitive to the pain of very cold water than those with lighter-colored eyes.
That’s not all, though. A separate study found that there may be a connection between your eye color and how much you experience dental pain. The research is still ongoing, though.
Brown-eyed men may wear a happier-looking face
Look beyond the eyes, and you might notice something. Brown-eyed men usually have broader mouths and slightly more upward-turned mouth corners. They were also more likely to have rounder chins and somewhat larger eyes. At least, that’s what one study found. The same study found that people usually read someone with these features as happier-looking.
It’s the opposite for blue-eyed men, apparently. Yes, they have narrower mouths, longer chins, smaller eyes, and mouth corners that angle down more. The study didn’t find these patterns in women, and while it doesn’t mean brown-eyed men are happier, people do read it that way.
Blue eyes have turned up in endometriosis research
Endometriosis is a kind of disease where a woman’s body grows tissue similar to the uterus lining in other parts of the body, such as in the ovaries or fallopian tubes. A woman’s eye color may have a role in that. An Italian study found that 30% of women with deep endometriosis had blue eyes.
When they looked closer at the results, they found that 16% of women with ovarian endometriomas, aka ovarian cysts from endometriomas, were blue-eyed. The percentage of women with green eyes, however, was around 9% to 10% across all three groups.
One diabetes connection has appeared in Europe
Blue-eyed people just can’t catch a break. Quite a few European studies have found that people with blue eyes seem more likely to have Type 1 diabetes. Take, for example, the study in Italy’s Lazio region. 21% of type 1 diabetes patients had blue eyes, but only 9% did in the control group.
It was a similar story in Sardinia, despite the fact that blue eyes really aren’t all that common there, anyway. Blue eyes appeared around twice as often among people with type 1 diabetes. German researchers noticed the same, too, with more blue or green eyes appearing among patients.
Blue eyes can accompany skin that burns faster
People with blue eyes tend to have lighter skin, and that’s bad news for anyone who likes the sun. Their skin tends to burn in the sun instead of tanning, and they’re more likely to have visible signs of sun exposure.
But don’t get us wrong. Having blue eyes doesn’t make it impossible for you to tan because, sure, there are plenty of blue-eyed people who do tan. It’s just that you’re more likely to burn instead of tan.
Green eyes could affect hair color
Green sure is an odd eye color. Green eyes are light, yes, but they’re not in the same kind of pigmentation category as blue. There could be a connection between green eyes and hair color. Some of the genes involved in green eyes are also tied to lighter hair.
These include blond and light brown shades, which makes sense because other pigmentation genes tend to affect both traits together. Having green eyes and dark hair isn’t unheard of or anything. There’s simply a higher chance that you’ll have light-colored hair if you have green eyes.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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