Color blindness: what you need to know

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Color blindness occurs when you cannot distinguish colors normally. It is also known as a color defect. This usually occurs between green and red, sometimes even blue. People with mild color blindness often discover it by chance because it does not affect their daily lives much. Changes in color vision may indicate a more serious condition. It can be life-threatening, like not being able to distinguish the colors of traffic lights.
What is color blindness?
Color blindness is also known as color vision disorder. It represents a condition in which the eyes cannot distinguish between colors of objects such as red, green, and blue, or when these colors are mixed together. Depending on the severity of color blindness, the ability to perceive the above colors is reduced or not seen at all.
Mechanisms of color blindness
Color blindness occurs when one or more cone cells are absent, inactive, or detect colors differently than normal. Mutations in the OPN1LW, OPN1MW, and OPN1SW genes cause forms of color vision deficiency. Proteins made from these genes play essential roles in color vision. Complete color blindness occurs when all three cone cells are absent.
Mild color blindness occurs when all three cone cells are present but one cone cell does not function properly. It detects a different color than normal.
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The cause of the illness
Color blindness is mostly hereditary, so you will have the disease from birth. The OPN1LW and OPN1MW genes are located on the X chromosome, which is one of the two sex chromosomes. In males (who have only one X chromosome), one genetic change in each cell is enough to cause the condition.
Males are affected by X-linked recessive genes much more often than females. Because females have two X chromosomes, a genetic change would have to occur on both copies of the chromosome to cause the disorder. One feature of this problem is that fathers cannot pass on X-linked traits to their sons.
In some cases, it is not due to genes. They can be caused by other eye disorders. Such as:
Diseases involving the retina, the nerve that carries visual information from the eye to the brain (optic nerve), or areas of the brain involved in processing visual information
Side effects of certain drugs, such as chloroquine (used to treat malaria).
Exposure to specific chemicals, such as organic solvents.
Physical or chemical damage to the eye
Cataract.
Age.
Can color blindness be cured?
There is currently no cure for this disorder. Especially when it's genetic.
Several methods can be used to increase color perception in people with the condition:
Use color filters based on Bragg filters. Although these glasses are effective, they are expensive, bulky, and not compatible with other types of vision correction eyeglasses.
Additionally, there has been research on a rhodamine derivative incorporated in commercial contact lenses to filter out specific wavelength ranges (545–575 nm) that correct color vision blindness. Biocompatibility assessment of dyed contact lenses in human corneal fibroblasts and corneal epithelial cells showed no toxicity, and cell viability remained at 99% after 72 hours. This study shows the potential of dyed contact lenses in wavelength filtering and the management of color vision deficiency.