What do you call the condition where a person has 2 different eye colors? Kuya Kim answers

Have you ever met a person whose eyes are of two different colors?

As seen on Kuya Kim's report on "24 Oras," Tuesday, among the Iraya-Mangyan community in Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro, there are at least three people with this condition.

Five-year-old Jaymar's right eye is brown and his left eye is blue. Meanwhile, Jaymar's sister has a blue right eye while her left eye is brown.

They both possibly got it from their dad, Elmar Laguyan, who also has different eye colors. All three of them have clear vision.

Kuya Kim said the condition is called heterochromia, which affects the iris—the part of the eye with color.

Heterochromia comes from the Greek words "heteros" and "chroma." "Heteros" means "another" while "chroma" means "color."

The color of people's eyes comes from the pigment that can be seen in the irises, which is called melanin.

Heterochromia exists when the distribution of melanin isn't equal. This can be caused by genetics or as a result of an injury.

"Kahit genetic ang heterochromia ng pasyente, magpapa-check-up pa rin sa ophthalmologist para sigurado. Pero most of the time, wala silang nagiging problema sa mata. Pero kung acquired, may pinagmulan na problema sa mata," said Dr. Sharlene Noguera, a Cornea and External Disease Specialist at Asian Eye Institute.

Heterochromia is a rare condition among humans. Less than 1% of the world's population has heterochromia. The condition is more common among animals like cats.

There are four conventional eye colors, which are brown, blue, hazel, and green. Green is the rarest eye color with only 2% of people in the world who have it.

People with brown eyes have rich melanin pigment deposits. On the other hand, those with blue eyes have very little melanin pigment deposits.

Others would also add the color gray as a standard eye color and refer to it as the rarest one. Less than 1% of the world's population has this eye color.

—Kimberly Tsao/MGP, GMA Integrated News