Acute ethanol administration causes transient impairment of blue-yellow color vision

The higher incidence of blue-yellow color blindness (tritanopia) found among alcoholics could be due to genetic or acquired factors. The acute administration of ethanol to alcoholics and normal subjects transiently resulted in poorer color discrimination in all spectra but with significantly more errors in the blue-yellow versus the red-green color range (p < 0.005, p < 0.01). Thus, ethanol appears to act as a toxin to inner retinal layers, which could account for the higher incidence of tritanopia found among alcoholics.