Iridology is the study of the Iris – the coloured part of the eye, the part that gives the eyes their depth and beauty.  They say the eyes are the window to the soul but they also provide information about a person’s health, genetic strengths & weaknesses, levels of inflammation and efficiency of elimination processes.

You may visit an iridologist, but most of the time if someone is looking at your iris it will be a naturopath or perhaps an herbalist, who uses iridology as part of their consultation to help establish the root cause of an ailment.

What’s in your eyes?

Each part of the iris relates to a specific organ or limb of the body. Sections forming a circular pattern beginning with the most inner section around the pupil representing the digestive system, finishing with the outer edge of the iris representing the skin. So each area, known as a concentric ring shows a particular body system. The eye is also divided into sections much like the spokes of a wheel, with the head & mind area placed at the top, lower limbs at the bottom and the rest of the body in between.

What do they tell us?

You may have heard the term "constitution" before, one of the first things an Iridologist will see by looking at the colour and structure of the fibres within the eye is your constitutional type. Different schools have different names for these but effectively it's telling us the same thing – what your genetic or inherent strengths and weaknesses are and how your mind and body are likely to deal with different stresses you may encounter.  

Iridology can show signs of inflammation, overactivity, underactivity, toxicity, sluggishness & weaknesses within specific organs or body systems. A practitioner will also look for signs of acute or chronic changes within the body.  

For example it may anatomically show a constricted or atonic (lack of muscle tone) bowel, which can tell us whether a person may be prone to constipation and what the possible cause may be, therefore assisting with choosing a particular line of treatment along with the appropriate dietary & lifestyle recommendations. It’s not just a matter of constipation = more fibre, the body is much more complex than that.

There are many different signs, a common being Nerve rings which can show if a person is more susceptible to stress and how the stress will affect them or what parts of the body could wear the burden of the stress.

The processes of detoxification and elimination are always apparent when looking into the iris, if these core functions are not working efficiently the whole body is affected in some way. The impact on each individual will be different and the eye helps us to learn how the effects will manifest.

What Iridology does NOT do!

Iridology has many misconceptions and is often misunderstood, thought to be able to tell us much more than it actually can, which can lead to great disappointment when a patient is told that disease or illness cannot be diagnosed by looking into the eye. If this were the case then mainstream medicine would not require so much technology, doctors and specialists would simply be able to use the Iris!

One cannot look into the eyes of a person and tell if they smoke a certain amount of cigarettes, have cancer or constipation. It is not a diagnostic tool, rather a guide as mentioned above, to a person’s tendency towards certain predispositions. This does not mean you should underestimate Iridology as a powerful addition to a thorough health consultation.