The reason why blue eyes are considered so appealing is unknown. Researchers ascribe this widespread appreciation to the Paleolithic society, where the few women with blue eyes had better chances of standing out in the crowd; others think it's due to the fact that pupil dilatation, an indicator of attraction, is more visible in lighter eyes.


Only 17% of the world's population has blue eyes, the rest can obtain cerulean eyes just with the help of colored contact lenses. But today a new laser surgery can permanently turn eyes from brown to blue.


The procedure was developed by California-based company Stroma Medical and, even though it has not been approved in the United States yet, it is currently performed in several countries.


Dr. Gregg Homer from Stroma Medical explained how the change of color works: “The fundamental principle is that under every brown eye is a blue eye. The only difference between a brown eye and a blue eye is this very thin layer of pigment on the surface.


If you take that pigment away, then the light can enter the stroma—the little fibers that look like bicycle spokes in a light eye—and when the light scatters it only reflects back the shortest wavelengths and that’s the blue end of the spectrum.”  In short, to go from brown to blue, doctors will remove the melanin present in the iris.


So far, just 17 patients in Mexico and 20 in Costa Rica have undergone the $5000 treatment. Dr. Homer supposes there won't be a lack of patients longing for twinkling blue eyes. "It's not a goal of our company to promote blue eyes", he says. "All your problems don't go away because you've changed your eye color, but I do believe that people like to express themselves a certain way and it's nice when they have the freedom to do that." Nature made us. Next Nature makes us prettier!


Source: CNN

Image via Shutterstock

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