Genetics & Your Eyes

She looks just like you! It’s a regular comment of friends and family looking at a new born baby. Facial similarities tend to become easier to recognise as children grow and there is no doubting resemblances among siblings and their parents. The question is how far those resemblances go. Do they include genetic elements that can be passed through generations which are potentially harmful?

The likelihood of successive generations being prone to similar diseases cannot be completely ignored. Hopefully, they are diseases for which treatment has improved over the years. When it comes to eyes, do genetics play a part? To an extent, colour is irrelevant. The important thing is whether eye problems can occur in successive generations without any solution.

If both of your parents are near-sighted or far-sighted, it is likely that you will be as well. Even if it is something that affects just one parent, you may well suffer likewise. However, environment and circumstances play a part in vision. If you read a great deal, you may develop near-sightedness quicker than someone with the same genetics, a sibling.

Other vision problems that may be passed on through the generations can be colour blindness and a disease of the retina called pigmentosa which sees the decline in the retina over time. Other eye problems have nothing to do with genetics but if you want to find out more about those that do, you need to consult an eye doctor. Parents who routinely bring their young children in for an eye examination when they are perhaps just months old can discover fairly quickly whether there are potential problems.

There are some conditions that cannot be treated. If you are colour blind, that will be something that you are born with and have to live with. It is generally no big deal. Other vision problems involve deterioration in your sight and some are completely preventable. The lesson is to do as much as you can to maintain healthy eyes and that involves a combination of things.

First of all, you should have a regular eye check. It involves minimal expense and often eye tests reveal other potential health problems, or more beneficially perhaps lack of them. A healthy diet in general benefits every aspect of your health including your eyes. That means plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and chicken in preference to red meat and watching how much sugar and salt you consume; beware processed foods as much as possible.

Exercise benefits the body as well, even if you don’t suddenly become a marathon runner or long -distance swimmer. There are eyedrops using natural ingredients that are an added help. Cheap, safe and very easy to apply, you will find them online, even in such a well-known website as eBay that has made its name as a popular trading website.

You cannot do much, if anything, about your genetic make-up but that is no excuse for not living a healthy life. ‘’Que sera, que sera’’ (what will be will be) is not the way to live.