Eye-to-eye with iridology
July 30, 2002 | 12:00am
I was amused to see a paid advertisement a few days ago about an association of medical doctors requesting for scientific basis or information to support iridology. Does that mean that a lot of Filipinos are now availing themselves of this alternative form of diagnosis?
Has iridology achieved a status of cult popularity?
I have never tried it and have always been unconvinced of its efficacy. Interest aroused, I looked at my favorite site quakwatch.com to see what Dr. Stephen Barrett has to say about the subject.
Dr. Barrett describes iridology (sometimes referred to as iris diagnosis) as health diagnosis "based on the bizarre belief that each area of the body is represented by a corresponding area in the iris of the eye (the colored area around the pupil)."
"According to this viewpoint, a person’s state of health and disease can be diagnosed from the color, texture, and location of various pigment flecks in the eye. Iridology practitioners claim to diagnose imbalances that can be treated with vitamins, minerals, herbs, and similar products. Some also claim that the eye markings can reveal a complete history of past illnesses as well as previous treatments. One textbook, for example, states that a white triangle in the appropriate area indicates appendicitis, but a black speck indicates that the appendix had been removed by surgery," he expounds.
According to leading American iridologist Bernard Jensen (1908-2001) "nature has provided us with a miniature television screen showing the most remote portions of the body by way of nerve reflex responses." He refers to iridology analyses as more reliable and "offer much more information about the state of the body than do the examinations of Western medicine."
Dr. Barrett notes though that Jensen and two other famous iridologists failed a test in 1979. They attempted to successfully diagnose from photographs of the eyes of 143 persons, some of whom had kidney impairments. With a standard kidney function test, 48 were diagnosed to have kidney disease while the rest were normal. The iridologists, however, detected anywhere from 74 to 88 percent as inflicted with kidney ailment.
Dr. Barrett reports that a lot of US herbalists are now very disillusioned by the method. Iridology has become more popular, what with multi-level marketing agents of vitamin and herbal companies using the process to prescribe their products.
One of the disillusioned is herbalist Michael Tierra. He allowed a young budding iridologist who had all the latest iridology equipment to set up in his clinic and study his patients for six months.
"Our conclusion after six months: My colleague, trying to hold on to the fast disappearing shred of belief in the validity of iridology sheepishly and somewhat guiltily sold his camera to another would-be iridology enthusiast. I buried my official iridology magnifying head band in a box in a dark, hopefully soon forgotten area of my office closet, where I must confess it still remains after over 15 years, unopened," Michael confesses.
To conclude, Dr. Barrett warns: "Iridology is not merely worthless. Incorrect diagnoses can unnecessarily frighten people, cause them to waste money seeking medical care for nonexistent conditions, or steer them away from necessary medical care when a real problem is overlooked."
I was a staunch supporter of alternative health care when I decided that a balanced approach to health care should include an understanding of conventional medicine. To that end, I decided on a program provided by the Medical Training Institute of America that trained health care consultants. The basic idea of the program appealed to me in that it involved studying directly under practicing physicians in a clinical atmosphere. My hope was that the knowledge I could gain would allow me to better integrate conventional and alternative medicine.
In addition to working in a clinical setting, the health care consultant program included studies on advanced anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, biochemistry, microbiology, and histology. The study of these sciences matured my understanding of alternative medicine. For example, I now understand herbs as biochemical compounds that intervene in bodily functions in much the same way as pharmaceuticals. I returned home from my three years of training with excitement and many new ideas on how to treat and evaluate several conditions.
As my inquiry of iridology progressed, the issue of science did crop up. How could I prove to someone else that the iris was anatomically and physiologically equipped to indicate what I was taught to believe it could? Early in my iridology training, I was taught that nerve impulses reach the brain from the tissues in the body and are routed to the iris through the optic nerve. When the nerve information reached the iris fibers it caused a restructuring in the iris to reflect the condition of the tissues of the body. As my training went on, my teachers came across the sad fact that the iris and optic nerve have little influence on each other. The theory then changed to state that the information reached the iris via the oculomotor nerve.
What evidence indicates that the iris can change fiber structure based on the information it receives via the oculomotor nerve? One iridologist has claimed, "We know from research using electron microscopes, that each fiber in the iris is actually a nerve sheath containing over 20,000 nerve fibers. Each of the nerve fibers travels through the central nervous system to every organ, system and area of the human body. As such, each region of the iris represents an area of the body. Is there correlation for this evidence?
The whole issue of presenting an anatomic, histologic, and physiologic basis for iridology is crucially important. Up to the point that I was finally willing to question the basic ideas of iridology, my previous studies presented only a shadow of doubt. Up to this point, I was able to question the validity and value of my conclusions against iridology because other iridologists had opposite conclusions or found nothing wrong with conclusions similar to mine. It was hard to believe that something I trusted most of my life was wrong.
I was taught as a young iridology student that various colors in the iris were deposits of chemicals. For example, a rust spot in the iris was a small spot of an injected chemical from a vaccine, or a brilliant yellow spot was the result of a sulfur deposit in the eye from the ingestion of a sulpha drug. The fact is that these spots are collections of melanin, similar to the substance that causes freckles in the skin.
Eminent iridologists have written in their works that these spots were found to contain metals and other substances in autopsies. Unless metals or other substances were injected directly in the iris, this cannot be true.
Based on the fact that iridology does not reflect true anatomy, physiology, or histology of the iris, and based on the fact that iris colors are not determined by nerve input, it became ludicrous for me to believe that iris color is any indication of health in remote organs. Some iridologists suggest that eye color and fiber structure are unchanging and are useful to indicate certain predisposition to mental and physical disorders. These iridologists once again use generalities and other useless methods to describe the usefulness of their method. They unfortunately fail in their attempts at using logic and science correctly.
E-mail mylene@goldsgymmanila.com for questions and comments.
Has iridology achieved a status of cult popularity?
I have never tried it and have always been unconvinced of its efficacy. Interest aroused, I looked at my favorite site quakwatch.com to see what Dr. Stephen Barrett has to say about the subject.
Dr. Barrett describes iridology (sometimes referred to as iris diagnosis) as health diagnosis "based on the bizarre belief that each area of the body is represented by a corresponding area in the iris of the eye (the colored area around the pupil)."
"According to this viewpoint, a person’s state of health and disease can be diagnosed from the color, texture, and location of various pigment flecks in the eye. Iridology practitioners claim to diagnose imbalances that can be treated with vitamins, minerals, herbs, and similar products. Some also claim that the eye markings can reveal a complete history of past illnesses as well as previous treatments. One textbook, for example, states that a white triangle in the appropriate area indicates appendicitis, but a black speck indicates that the appendix had been removed by surgery," he expounds.
Dr. Barrett notes though that Jensen and two other famous iridologists failed a test in 1979. They attempted to successfully diagnose from photographs of the eyes of 143 persons, some of whom had kidney impairments. With a standard kidney function test, 48 were diagnosed to have kidney disease while the rest were normal. The iridologists, however, detected anywhere from 74 to 88 percent as inflicted with kidney ailment.
One of the disillusioned is herbalist Michael Tierra. He allowed a young budding iridologist who had all the latest iridology equipment to set up in his clinic and study his patients for six months.
"Our conclusion after six months: My colleague, trying to hold on to the fast disappearing shred of belief in the validity of iridology sheepishly and somewhat guiltily sold his camera to another would-be iridology enthusiast. I buried my official iridology magnifying head band in a box in a dark, hopefully soon forgotten area of my office closet, where I must confess it still remains after over 15 years, unopened," Michael confesses.
To conclude, Dr. Barrett warns: "Iridology is not merely worthless. Incorrect diagnoses can unnecessarily frighten people, cause them to waste money seeking medical care for nonexistent conditions, or steer them away from necessary medical care when a real problem is overlooked."
In addition to working in a clinical setting, the health care consultant program included studies on advanced anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, biochemistry, microbiology, and histology. The study of these sciences matured my understanding of alternative medicine. For example, I now understand herbs as biochemical compounds that intervene in bodily functions in much the same way as pharmaceuticals. I returned home from my three years of training with excitement and many new ideas on how to treat and evaluate several conditions.
What evidence indicates that the iris can change fiber structure based on the information it receives via the oculomotor nerve? One iridologist has claimed, "We know from research using electron microscopes, that each fiber in the iris is actually a nerve sheath containing over 20,000 nerve fibers. Each of the nerve fibers travels through the central nervous system to every organ, system and area of the human body. As such, each region of the iris represents an area of the body. Is there correlation for this evidence?
The whole issue of presenting an anatomic, histologic, and physiologic basis for iridology is crucially important. Up to the point that I was finally willing to question the basic ideas of iridology, my previous studies presented only a shadow of doubt. Up to this point, I was able to question the validity and value of my conclusions against iridology because other iridologists had opposite conclusions or found nothing wrong with conclusions similar to mine. It was hard to believe that something I trusted most of my life was wrong.
I was taught as a young iridology student that various colors in the iris were deposits of chemicals. For example, a rust spot in the iris was a small spot of an injected chemical from a vaccine, or a brilliant yellow spot was the result of a sulfur deposit in the eye from the ingestion of a sulpha drug. The fact is that these spots are collections of melanin, similar to the substance that causes freckles in the skin.
Eminent iridologists have written in their works that these spots were found to contain metals and other substances in autopsies. Unless metals or other substances were injected directly in the iris, this cannot be true.
Based on the fact that iridology does not reflect true anatomy, physiology, or histology of the iris, and based on the fact that iris colors are not determined by nerve input, it became ludicrous for me to believe that iris color is any indication of health in remote organs. Some iridologists suggest that eye color and fiber structure are unchanging and are useful to indicate certain predisposition to mental and physical disorders. These iridologists once again use generalities and other useless methods to describe the usefulness of their method. They unfortunately fail in their attempts at using logic and science correctly.
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