BBC
News
 | | Light
eye colour could increase the risk of deafness |
People
with light-coloured eyes are over five times more likely to go deaf if they get
meningitis than those with dark eyes, according to research.
Scientists
found a link between pigmentation and ear damage - suggesting that the more pigmentation
a person has, the better their inner-ear is protected.
But researcher
Helen Cullington, a scientist at the Hearing and Balance Centre, based at the
University of Southampton, admits her findings need a lot more work to establish
their full value in the fight against meningitis.
Ms Cullington studied
the eye colour of 130 deaf patients aged between two and 80 and found that those
with light coloured eyes, such as grey, blue, green and hazel were more at risk.
Ms Cullington found that out of 98 patients whose deafness was not caused
by meningitis 27% had dark eyes and 73% had light eyes.
But among the
32 people who were deafened by meningitis the split was much more pronounced -
just 6% had dark eyes and 94% had light eyes.
Survival rates
Ms
Cullington said: "The difference in proportions of eye colour between the survivors
of meningitis and the UK adult population was significant.
"The odds ratio
showed that people with light eyes were 5.8 times as likely to be deafened by
meningitis than those with dark eyes."
But in the British Medical Journal
(BMJ) research pointer Ms Cullington admitted the same research could also point
to the fact that people with dark coloured eyes have a poorer survival rate from
meningitis.
She also suggested that people with light coloured eyes are
more likely to contract meningitis than those with dark eyes.
A spokeswoman
from the Meningitis Research Foundation said more research was needed before the
value of this research is known.
"It is certainly interesting and anything
that can give us more help and information about meningitis is invaluable."
But
she said the BMJ study had been on a very limited number of people and that it
was impossible to draw conclusions from this. |
