I live in a sunny area but most middle eastern people I see don’t wear sunglasses I wonder if their eyes are more resistant to the sun from all the sunshine they got in the native area for thousands/millions of years? Also the middle eastern guys I work with don’t wear safety glasses and there eyes don’t seem bothered by it I wonder if their eyes evolved to be resistant due to all the sand they were exposed to for thousands of years.
Highly unlikely.
More likely, people have simply never worn sunglasses in that area and just put up with the resulting incremental damage over time. How common are cataracts in the elderly in those folks? I’ve also heard about sunlight-induced damage to color perception in that region as well, but can’t confirm that with solid statistics.
While the eyes have some ability to adapt to bright light, over time frequent exposure to bright sunlight does cause cumulative damage.
Since human beings originally evolved in sub-Saharan Africa, where the sun shines even more brightly than in teh middle east, if there were any evolutionarily based differences in this regard one would expect to be that peoples who have long lived in cloudy temperate or cold climes might have gradually lost the sunlight resistance they once had. This, indeed, seems to have happened with respect to skin pigmentation, but I have never heard of any evidence that applies to eyesight.
If it is really true that middle easterners are less inclined to use sunglasses than are whites (I don’t say Caucasians, because most middle easterners are Caucasians, inasmuch as the word has any meaning), it is probably for cultural rather than biological reasons. Wearing sunglasses is a pretty recently developed behavior, even amongst affluent whites, and middle easterner cultures may simply just not have picked up on it to the same extent yet. Actually, as a white English person, I did not start doing it myself until after I had been living in California for several years.
Does this help? Blue/Green eyes are more sensitive (pain-wise) to light.
I’m going to say ME people do not have a greater resistance. My only proof is a book that I once read “The Spymasters of Israel”. In it, it talks about how Mossad sent somebody to blow up some place in one of those countries over there. It said that the spy was conspicuous because he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, in “that land of sunglasses.”
That’s all I got.
Sure it has- brown eyes are brown because of melanin. That’s why most black and brown people also have brown eyes, and also why we see a lot more blue and green eyes among white people.
It’s an anecdote and all, but a couple of years ago I went for an eye test. My optician told me (after doing one of those things where they take a picture of your retina) that my retina was “pale”. She asked me if bright sunlight hurt my eyes. Well, it does. I have blue eyes and very fair skin.
Now of course, even professionals get things wrong sometimes, so I don’t know. But she was certainly sure that my pale retinas would be a concern, and advised me to get sunglasses.
Seeing a picture of my retina was a bit odd. It’s one part of my body I never get to look at.
Yes I also have very blue eyes and my eyes hurt if I drive my car without sunglasses, I wonder if having brown eyes makes you less sensitive like how people with dark skin don’t get sunburned.
Reported.
Interesting, Are there any studies like that that show people with brown eyes are less sensitive to dust , sand and particles ect than people with blue eyes?
I have one brown & one blue eye. The blue is definitely more sensitive to light, and I see things with a slightly different tint in each eye; only noticeable when closing back and forth.
Does your blue eye also seem more sensitive to getting particles in it?
No.