Three major health problems you can spot just by looking into someone's eyes

You can tell a lot about someone just by looking into their eyes. A subtle look, or sharp glance, can say as much as a full sentence but, to the medically trained, your eyes can reveal everything from your cholesterol levels to issues with your thyroid.

If you happen to notice a new bulge in your eye, or an odd-coloured ring developing around your iris, this could be a sign of a serious medical problem. These issues might be far from your heart, liver, and thyroid, but they can reveal a lot about your physical health elsewhere in your body.

Your eyes are an organ like all the others and, just like the others, when something goes wrong with another part of your body, this can sometimes trigger a change in their normal function. An example of this is jaundice, where problems with your liver can turn the whites of your eyes yellow, but there are many other drastic symptoms of ill health that you can see just by looking into someone's eyes.

READ MORE: Doctor warns of four early warning signs of diabetes that most people overlook

Thankfully, many of these conditions are rare and unlikely to affect you, but if you spot any of them you should consider speaking to your GP about further medical examinations.

Exophthalmos

Around 80 per cent of all people with an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) have a condition known as Grave's disease. Though this can be treated with surgery and medication, some people will see their eyes start to bulge out of their sockets.

This is called exophthalmos, or proptosis, and occurs when swelling around your eye triggered by Grave's disease causes your eye to protrude out of its socket. While this does not typically cause vision loss and will go away on its own, many people will experience this condition for up to two years.

Grave's disease is an autoimmune condition where your immune system attacks your thyroid gland, which controls the flow of some hormones, leading it to overproduce thyroid hormones. It typically affects both eyes, but some people will notice it more in one eye than the other.

The National Eye Institute explains: "Sometimes Graves’ disease makes the immune system attack the muscles and other tissues around the eyes. This causes swelling behind the eye sockets, which makes the eyes bulge out.

"Researchers aren’t sure what causes Graves’ disease. They think people with certain genes may be more likely to get it. Viruses or something else in the environment may act as a “trigger” that makes the disease develop in people who have these genes.

"Graves’ disease isn’t contagious — you can’t get it from or give it to other people."

Corneal arcus

More common in middle aged and older people, if you notice a blue ring develop around someone's iris, it could be a sign that they have a genetic problem with cholesterol. The condition, known as a corneal arcus, is actually a tell-tale sign of a genetic disorder called familial hypercholesterolaemia.

Some people will get tested for this condition, affecting one in every 250 people, if a family member has a heart attack at a young age, as their liver might not be processing cholesterol properly. This can cause a variety of symptoms, including the arcus senilis, which presents as a white or blue ring.

This is not the only symptom of high cholesterol that you can spot just by looking into someone's eyes. For some people with this familial genetic condition can also cause them to develop xanthelasmas.

These are yellowy lumps near the inner corner of the eye that are actually small deposits of cholesterol. Elsewhere on your body, this can also cause xanthomata to form around your tendons - which can cause your knuckle to swell and become stiff due to the build-up of cholesterol deposits.

People with this disorder should seek medical advice as they will need to take steps to lower their cholesterol intake, or these symptoms can become worse.

The NHS says: "Nearly everybody with FH can be treated effectively with statins and other lipid lowering drugs. A small number of people with FH may require lipoprotein apheresis, or sometimes may be offered a new medication as part of a clinical trial."

Kayser-Fleischer ring

If you can see a rusty yellow-brown ring around your iris, your body could be storing up dangerous amounts of metal through a recessive genetic disorder known as Wilson's disease (WD).

WD is a rare disorder that causes copper to build up in several organs in your body, including your eye. This is called a Kayser-Fleischer ring, which begins as a yellow to green coloured line at the top of your iris, before developing into a ring.

The disease mainly affects the brain and liver, also causing swelling in the abdomen, yellow skin, and sometimes personality changes. The onset of WD can occur at any time, though mostly affecting those aged 3 to 50, and is tested for through a series of liver examinations and a visit to an ophthalmologist.

The British Liver Trust: "A characteristic clinical sign of Wilson’s disease is a rusty or coppery brown ring around your eye known as the Kayser-Fleischer ring (sometimes called the K-F ring). In most cases you can’t see the ring with the naked eye. Around half of people with Wilson’s disease have them.

"As part of testing for Wilson’s disease you will have a slit-lamp eye examination to check for Kayser-Fleischer rings. A doctor who specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of eye conditions (ophthalmologist) will do the test. The slit-lamp is a type of specialised microscope with a high-intensity light beam attached that gives the doctor a very close-up view of your cornea."