Alternative medicines

Archive for the ‘Iridology’ Category

It is believed that the human iris cannot change during the course of a person’s life.  The iris forms when the person is still in the uterus, and though there can be some color changes within the iris during the first year of a person’s life, this is generally the only natural change that occurs.  Some glaucoma patients get iris variations after treatment, but there are no other changes to the iris, despite illness.  This, of course, brings about the question what is the iridologist looking at if a person’s eye never changes? 

Iridologists and proponents of iridology generally feel that the problems a person has, particularly illnesses, can be determines by whatever variations are visible in the iris.  They do not necessarily look for changes in the iris.  However, it can also be argued that if the iridologist is not looking for changes, he is not able to diagnose any illnesses at all.

Many proponents of alternative therapy wonder at why some of the available therapies, treatments, and diagnostic practices have not been approved by the United States government for established medical use.  While the reasons for the lack of approval vary according to the alternative therapy method in question, in the case of Iridology it is simply a matter of a complete lack of scientific evidence of the efficacy of the method.

There have been several scientific studies of Iridology performed by researchers and the results of each of these studies have been almost identical.  The general conclusion is that the effectiveness of iridology as a diagnostic tool is no better than chance.  In other words, it is statistically just as likely for a person to guess at a patient’s illness as it is for a trained Iridologist to assess the illness correctly.  Because there is no conclusive evidence to prove that Iridology works, the United States government has not approved it as a legitimate diagnostic tool.