What Are the Different Types of Color Blindness?
Key takeaways:
There are three different types of color blindness: red-green, blue-yellow, and complete color blindness. The most common type is red-green color blindness.
Males are more likely to develop color blindness because of how the condition passes from generation to generation.
Certain medications can cause color blindness, including hydroxychloroquine, sildenafil, ethambutol, and digoxin.
Table of contents
Color blindness, also known as color vision deficiency, happens when you aren’t able to perceive certain colors.
This condition is much more common in males: It affects nearly 1 in 12 males but only 1 in 200 females. While there’s no cure for color blindness, there are tools that can help people navigate day-to-day activities. Here’s an in-depth look into color blindness.
What causes color blindness?
Color blindness develops when people can’t perceive certain colors.
Search and compare options
The back layer of the eye is called the retina. The retina receives light from the outside world and turns it into chemical signals, which it then passes on to the brain. The brain interprets this information so people can see.
Inside the retina there are special color-sensing receptors called cones. A cone picks up specific wavelengths of light that correspond to red, green, or blue. It sends these signals to the brain, which then interprets them as color. The mixing of these three primary wavelengths — red, green, and blue — lets the brain perceive all other colors and shades.
Some people are born with fewer cones (or no cones), so they are not able to pick up red, green, or blue. That means their brains are unable to perceive these colors and all other colors and shades made from them.
What are the different types of color blindness?
There are three types of color blindness. Each type affects people differently.
Red-green color blindness
Red-green color blindness is the most common type of color blindness. People with this type of color blindness have trouble perceiving different shades of red and green.
Red-green color blindness is further broken down into four subtypes:
Protanopia: People with this subtype are born without cones that pick up red light. They cannot distinguish any shades of red. They cannot tell the difference between red and green.
Protanomaly: People have fewer red cones. They perceive shades of red, but colors may look paler or less bright. Red colors may have a blue or green hue.
Deuteranopia: People are born without cones that pick up green light. They cannot distinguish any shades of green. They cannot tell the difference between red and green.
Deuteranomaly: People have fewer green cones. They may see some shades of green, but colors may look more red. This is the most common and most mild type of red-green color blindness.
Read more like this
Explore these related articles, suggested for readers like you.
Blue-yellow color blindness
Blue-yellow color blindness is less common than red-green color blindness. Despite its name, people with this type of color blindness don’t have trouble separating blue and yellow. Rather, they have trouble separating blue from green and yellow from red.
There are two types of blue-yellow color blindness:
Tritanopia: People cannot tell the difference between blue and green, purple and red, and yellow and pink. Colors also look less bright.
Tritanomaly: People have a less severe form of blue-yellow color blindness. They have a hard time telling the difference between blue and green and between yellow and red. But it’s not as severe as tritanopia.
Achromatopsia (total color blindness)
People with achromatopsia cannot see any color. They only see black, white, and shades of gray. This is the most severe form of color blindness, but it is very rare.
People with this condition also have other vision problems like increased light sensitivity and farsightedness
Who is more likely to have color blindness?
Some people are born with color blindness while others develop it later in life. You are more likely to develop color blindness if:
Color blindness runs in your family. Most types of color blindness are genetic and pass from generation to generation. So, if color blindness runs in your family, you are more likely to have it, too. But red-green color blindness passes through the X chromosome. Since males have only one copy of the X chromosome, they are more likely than females to develop red-green color blindness.
You have certain medical conditions. Medical conditions like diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and multiple sclerosis (MS) can lead to color blindness. So can injury or trauma to the eye.
You have a condition that affects your vision. Some eye conditions can also cause color blindness. These include glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration.
You take certain medications. Some medications can also affect color vision, including sildenafil (Viagra), digoxin, and metronidazole.
What are the symptoms of color blindness?
If you develop color blindness later in life, you may notice that colors seem less vibrant. Also, you may have difficulty telling apart shades of the same color. If your symptoms are very mild, you may never notice a problem with your vision.
In children who are born with this condition, they often realize they have color blindness when learning the different colors. Some people never discover they have a color vision deficiency if they learn to associate a certain color with an object.
How does color blindness affect your life?
Mild forms of color blindness don’t usually impact people’s daily lives.
More severe color blindness can be a challenge. They can limit certain job prospects such as being a pilot or engineer. People who are color blind often develop tools to perform their daily activities. For example, they might memorize the order of lights on a traffic light or label clothing to help with matching.
There are also special glasses that may help some people see color more accurately. But these glasses may not work well for everyone.
Does color blindness get worse with age?
If you develop color blindness later in life due to medication side effects or medical conditions, your color blindness may get worse as you get older. Getting treatment for your medical condition or switching medications may keep color blindness from getting worse.
But if you are born with color blindness, your condition will not get worse as you get older.
The bottom line
There are three types of color blindness: red-green, blue-yellow, and total color blindness. People with color blindness may not be able to see certain colors. More mild types of color blindness do not impact people’s day-to-day activities. People are often born with color blindness. But people can also develop it later in life as a side effect of medications or medical conditions like glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration.
Why trust our experts?
References
American Academy of Ophthalmology. (2020). Retina.
Color Blind Awareness. (n.d.). About colour blindness.
MedlinePlus. (n.d.). Achromatopsia.
Mukamal, R. (2021). Do colorblindness glasses really work? American Academy of Ophthalmology.
National Eye Institute. (2019). Color blindness.
National Eye Institute. (2023). Types of color blindness.
Rassi, S. Z., et al. (2016). Drug-induced deficits in color perception: Implications for vision rehabilitation professionals. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness.
