We've received a lot of positive things from our mothers! Besides the emotional care and support, sometimes we overlook the genetic and hereditary aspects we get from them. If you have brown, blue, or hazel eyes, your mother's (and father's) DNA plays a crucial role. A key factor affecting eye health is your family history. Many eye diseases can be inherited from parents, including retinal diseases, glaucoma, and cataracts. Understanding the genetic link between these diseases and your family history can help you take steps to protect your vision, detect any problems early, and get the best possible treatment outcomes.

Here are 4 eye diseases that may be inherited from your mother:

Hereditary Eye Disease One: Myopia

If both parents have myopia degrees below 600 diopters, the likelihood of inheriting myopia is not high for children.
If both parents are highly myopic with degrees above 600 diopters, the probability of children being myopic will greatly increase.
If neither parent has myopia, children may still inherit myopia. This is because of the myopia genes.
The myopia inheritance gene is located on an autosome and is a recessive gene. If a child inherits a highly myopic invisible gene chromosome from both parents, the invisible genes combine, naturally manifesting, and the child becomes myopic.

Hereditary Eye Disease Two: Cataracts

Cataracts are vision disorders caused by cloudy lenses and are a blinding eye disease.
Cataracts have many classifications, including age-related cataracts (also known as senile cataracts), traumatic cataracts, secondary cataracts, metabolic cataracts, and congenital cataracts.
Some cataracts are hereditary, while others are not. For example, age-related cataracts are not hereditary. Among them, congenital cataracts have a certain genetic predisposition; in metabolic cataracts, galactose cataracts are autosomal recessive genetic diseases.
If a person's grandparents, parents, or previous generations had cataracts at a young age, the likelihood of this person inheriting cataracts is high.
If there is painless gradual vision loss, colored halos around lights, double vision when looking at objects, but no symptoms of redness or pain in the eyes, cataracts should be considered a possibility.

Hereditary Eye Disease Three: Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a disease characterized by pathological elevation of intraocular pressure due to certain reasons, leading to optic nerve atrophy and visual field defects. Glaucoma is the main cause of blindness and is a common eye disease in the elderly. Glaucoma is a disease related to heredity. People with a family history of glaucoma belong to one of the high-risk groups for glaucoma. In other words, if parents have glaucoma, the risk of their children developing glaucoma doubles. Therefore, people with a family history of glaucoma must pay great attention to it.

Angle-closure glaucoma and chronic angle-closure glaucoma have relatively hidden onsets, with no particularly obvious symptoms in the early stage. Patients often see things blurred and may also experience nausea, vomiting, headaches, eye swelling, and rainbow rings around lights. Therefore, the possibility of glaucoma should be considered, and they should go to an ophthalmologist as soon as possible for examination.

Hereditary Eye Disease Four: Color Blindness

Color blindness is a relatively common disease that has a significant impact on people's lives and work. The main types include red-green color blindness, blue-yellow color blindness, and total color blindness.
Color blindness is a hereditary genetic disease that is transmitted through genes. It is inherited with the X chromosome gene and can be inherited by daughters and sons. However, males will show symptoms, and the probability of females showing symptoms is relatively low, so the number of male color blind people far exceeds that of females.

In addition to the common eye diseases mentioned above, there are actually many eye diseases that can be inherited, with a number of more than 200, and there are more than 400 systemic or other organ hereditary diseases that can cause eye lesions.

Conclusion:

So, this Mother's Day, as we celebrate our mothers with flowers and cards, it's also a good time to talk to your mother about her health and ask about your family medical history. These questions may become important to you as you grow older.

Another important question to ask is, "Mom, have you scheduled your annual comprehensive eye examination with an optometrist this year?" You can even start a new family tradition: schedule your eye examination on the same day every May, so you can help each other choose the most suitable (inherited!) colored lenses that match your personality.

Remember: Just because your family members have eye diseases doesn't necessarily mean you will too. However, understanding your family history can help you and your ophthalmologist monitor your eye health more closely and make any necessary checks.