What causes colour blindness?
Question asked by: knowitall
Colour blindness is first and foremost something genetic that you are born with or without, not something that you can catch.
It is shown by an inability to distinguish certain combinations of colours in the same way as the majority with people. The word blind in the term is therefore clearly misleading as it has not impact on ability to see, but rather with colour definition.
There are three main types of colour blindness; red/green being by far the most common.
There is also blue colour blindness - this is a rarer form. A total inability to see colour but rather a black and white world and shades of grey is very rare indeed.
Thus the cause of colour blindness is due to genetic differences. Red/green and blue colour blindness seem to have this coded in the genes in at least two gene locations; most people affected are men.
This gives a clue that the X chromosome must have some bearing on this, as men only have one whilst women have two X chromosomes and therefore the alteration would need to be on both X's to have an impact.
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