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You folks that are blessed with the lighter colors of eyes may have this benefit or surprise.
Those of us with almost black eyes....not a chance that I know of! My Cherokee roots must be the reason. It's not easy to even notice that I have pupils.
"The genes involved in eye color determine how much pigment gets made, how quickly it is degraded and where in your iris to put it. In other words, eye color is an ongoing process that is not necessarily set in stone.
So all that has to happen to change eye color is to change the final amount of pigment in your eye. How could that happen?
Remember, genes are just recipes for proteins. When eye color genes are on, proteins that make and degrade eye color pigment are made. The amount of pigment in your eye is determined by how good these proteins are at their job and how many of these proteins are doing their jobs. For example, you get the same amount of pigment if you make a little bit of a good protein or lots of a mediocre protein.
The most likely explanation for a change in eye color is to change the amount of pigment producing proteins made. There are lots of cases where something in the environment changes the amount of protein that is made.
Now, back to your questions. An eye color change at puberty doesn't seem farfetched considering all the genes that get turned on and off when a child turns into an adult. In fact, maybe the 15% of people whose eyes change color at puberty have an eye color gene that responds to the sex hormones associated with puberty.
As for eyes changing color at various times as an adult, we need to say that there is something in the environment affecting one or more of the eye color genes. There are lots of examples of things in the environment influencing how much a gene is turned on. Stress, for example, is known to affect genes important for the immune system. I've also read about certain foods affecting eye color.
I hope this helped. The bottom line is that eye color is the result of a constant process of pigment creation and destruction. As I was writing this, I began to wonder if most people have small changes in their eye color genes but that it is unnoticeable. For example, my blue eyes are most likely due to defective eye color proteins. So if their expression were changed, there would be no change in eye color. The same probably holds true for dark brown eyes where any changes are too subtle to notice. It may be that only those on the cusp with, for example, hazel color eyes can notice these subtle changes."
I was reading about eye color on wikipedia after this thread started, and also saw some mention of the amount of copper in your body affecting the coloring or the iris. I then bounced around a little on different sites (sorry, didn't save them) and found more mentions of copper affecting eye color. So I also wonder if other metals can have an effect? So many of us take mineral supplements today and some of those metals might make changes to our eye color. Anyway, that's my working hypothesis.
I had green eyes as a kid, and believe I still do, but I've been told by other people many times since my early 20s that my eyes look blue to them. I don't know if I should call my eyes blue, green or blue-green.
I was reading some eye colour articles on the Web, and "blue-green" seems to have become a legitimate eye colour description. I wonder if there's an objective way to figure out if my eyes are more green, or more blue?
I did read somewhere that eyes with a lot of "hazel" are the most likely colour to change over time as someone ages.
You folks that are blessed with the lighter colors of eyes may have this benefit or surprise.
Those of us with almost black eyes....not a chance that I know of! My Cherokee roots must be the reason. It's not easy to even notice that I have pupils.
I like black eyes. I saw a guy who had also tattooed his white parts of the eyes black and dang that is hot
My grandfather had brown eyes untill old age so I saw him only with light eyes. I do not think that is a blessing but rather a curse. My mothers sisters and brothers all had a different dad, if they describe their father, he always looked a different person with different colors. I am that kinda too, my colors are changing all the time and I .... Do not know me .
Interesting... I didn't know the color of the eyes changed (short of being blue-ish when you're a baby). My eyes are hazel and I haven't noticed any change.
Hair color does seem to change more often. I was born with almost black hair, which went to almost blond when I was about 5, and finally settled on mousy brown.
I have read this in a number of threads. Lately, I have noticed that my DH, in his late 40s, seems to have greener eyes, almost a pale emerald. Very beautiful, but when we met, over 25 years ago his eyes were hazel.
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