Jul 02, 2015 12:12 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Your eye color could predict health problems later in life, according to a recent study.

Researchers at the University of Vermont found that people with light-colored eyes -- including blue, green, grey and brown -- were more likely to be dependent on alcohol than those with dark brown eyes, The Huffington Post reported.

"This suggests an intriguing possibility -- that eye color can be useful in the clinic for alcohol dependence diagnosis," Arvis Sulovari, who led the study, said in a statement.

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from more than 1,000 alcohol-dependent patients with European ancestry. Within this sample they found that people with blue eyes had the strongest tendency for alcohol dependence.

The study outlines the genetic components that determine eye color and shows that they line up along the same chromosome as the genes related to excessive alcohol use.

"What has fascinated me the most about this work has been investigating the interface between statistics, informatics and biology," Sulovari said. "It's an incredible opportunity to study genomics in the context of complex human diseases."

According to Newser, a 2000 study arrived at a similar conclusion. Among the sample set, women with darker-colored eyes averaged 4.91 drinks in the last month to light-eyed females' 5.78.

The findings are detailed in the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics.

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