Health Studies 301 Complementary and Alternative Therapies

Study Guide: Unit 17

Iridology

An iridology chart. Akilah, El, 2004. CC-BY-SA-3.0-MIGRATED.

Iridology originated from a ten-year-old boy’s observation in Hungary in 1836 that the iris of an owl with a broken leg had a single sharp black line that disappeared when the leg had healed.

Iridology is based on the theory that by examining the iris (coloured portion of the eye) one can identify toxicity and inflammation in the connective tissue of the body. It is claimed that this unhealthy tissue is the predecessor to both physical and emotional disorders. The iridologist will recommend particular herbs and other natural foods to prevent the diseases that the client is vulnerable to. Iridology is typically used by complementary medicine therapists, such as herbalists, who do not have access to, or training in, medical diagnostic tests.

Learning Objectives

When you have completed Unit 17, you should be able to

• discuss the theory and practice of iridology.
• determine the effectiveness of iridology by analyzing the available research.

Learning Activities

Study Questions

As you complete the activities for Unit 17, keep the following questions in mind. You may want to use the Personal Learning Space wiki on the course home page, and answer these questions as a way of keeping notes to focus your learning.

1. What is iridology?
2. What are the problems associated with this practice?
3. Are there potential benefits of iridology? Why do you think the practice continues?

Unit 17 Discussion Forum

When you have completed the other activities for this unit, answer at least one of the questions in the Unit 17 Discussion Forum, and respond to at least one post by a fellow learner.

The more questions you answer, the better prepared you will be for the final exam!

Read

In addition to the notes provided here, read

Knipschild, P. (1998). Looking for gall bladder disease in the patient’s iris. British Medical Journal, 297, 1578–1581.

The Practice of Iridology

Supporters of iridology claim that the body and its inner organs are projected onto the iris. Iridologists have created topographic maps of the iris that allow organ-specific diagnoses. However, the various topographic iris maps are not entirely consistent as to the representation of a given organ within the iris (Ernst & Hentschel, 1995). As in ear acupuncture and reflexology, iridologists claim that all organs are connected to an easily accessible body part. It is as if human evolution were planned to facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of disease!

Practitioners can obtain a certificate in iridology through a correspondence course. Such courses claim that students learn how to identify inflammation, inherent body strengths and weaknesses, general health states, drug accumulations, nutritional deficiencies, prolapsed organs, poor circulation, tension, toxemia, and acidity levels using photographs. The practice of iridology is completely unregulated.

Benefits

There is no scientific evidence that iridology is beneficial as a diagnostic tool.

Contraindications

Iridology is contraindicated for any condition that may be caused by underlying disease or for patients with serious infections. Any condition that would create serious harm from delay in medical treatment should not be treated solely by an iridologist (e.g., cancer). Other considerations are that contact lens wearers may have iris changes from lens wear, not from an internal imbalance, and that bright lights used in iridology diagnosis may irritate those with sensitive eyes. Finally, the time and cost of an iridology diagnosis may be prohibitive.

Research

Clinical studies by Simon, Worthen, and Mitas (1979) compared the diagnoses of ophthalmologists and iridologists in examining photographs of the irises of 143 individuals, 48 of whom had known kidney disease as defined by elevated blood creatinine levels. The percentage of correct diagnoses was no better than could be expected by chance, and there was no difference between the ophthalmologist and iridologist groups. In particular, the best screener correctly identified patients with kidney disease 57% of the time and incorrectly identified patients with no kidney disease (type 2 error) 43% of the time.

Simon et al. (1979) concluded that iridology is of no value for the diagnosis of kidney disease. Moreover, it may produce two types of harm: first, psychological harm as a result of people wrongly believing that they have kidney disease and second, physical harm as a result of kidney disease being present but undiagnosed and therefore untreated.

In the case-control study described in the reading assignment, Knipschild (1988) had iridologists diagnose the presence of gallbladder stones from slide pictures of the right iris of a group of patients with confirmed gallbladder stones and a group of control subjects. Knipschild found that iridologists could not distinguish between cases and controls.

A study in Germany investigated whether iridology is of any value as a diagnostic tool for cancer (Münstedt et al., 2005). The researchers enrolled 68 patients with various types of cancer and 42 control subjects. Each subject was examined by an iridologist, who was then asked to suggest a diagnosis. However, his success rate was so low that the researchers concluded that “Iridology was of no value in diagnosing the cancers investigated in this study.”

Summary

From the research completed to date, it is fair to conclude that there is no scientific basis to iridology, there is no established connection between the eye and other body parts (except in rare specific instances such as the presence of jaundiced eyes in liver disease), and there could be adverse consequences due to misdiagnosis. In addition, natural variations in eye colour and pigmentation further make reliable diagnoses highly unlikely.

Learning Activity

Self-test Quiz

Do the self-test quiz for Unit 17 as many times as you wish to check your recall of the unit’s main points. You will get a slightly different version of the quiz each time you try it. (This quiz does not count toward your final grade).

If you have trouble understanding the material, please contact your Academic Expert.

References