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Several months ago, I had the opportunity to undergo a full-body scan in the eastern part of London. The health screening facility uses ECG tests, blood analysis, and a voice-assisted skin analysis to assess patients. The organization states it can detect multiple underlying cardiovascular and metabolic concerns, determine your likelihood of contracting early diabetes and identify potentially dangerous skin growths.

When viewed from outside, the center looks like a vast crystal memorial. Internally, it's akin to a curve-walled wellness center with pleasant dressing rooms, private assessment spaces and indoor greenery. Sadly, there's no swimming pool. The whole process requires under an one hour period, and includes among other things a mostly nude examination, multiple blood samples, a measurement of grasping power and, finally, through some swift data-crunching, a GP consultation. Most patients leave with a relatively clean bill of health but attention to later problems. In its first year of operation, the organization reports that 1% of its patients obtained possibly life-preserving information, which is meaningful. The concept is that these findings can then be provided to medical services, point people towards necessary care and, ultimately, prolong lifespan.

The Screening Process

My personal encounter was very comfortable. There's no pain. I liked wafting through their soft-colored spaces wearing their plush footwear. Additionally, I was grateful for the leisurely process, though this is probably more of a reflection on the situation of national health services after years of financial neglect. On the whole, top marks for the service.

Worth Considering

The important consideration is whether it's worth it, which is more difficult to assess. In part due to there is no comparison basis, and because a favorable evaluation from me would depend on whether it identified problems – under those circumstances I'd possibly become less focused on giving it excellent marks. Additionally, it's important to note that it doesn't perform radiation imaging, magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography, so can solely identify hematological issues and cutaneous tumors. Members in my family tree have been affected by growths, and while I was reassured that my pigmented spots look untoward, all I can do now is live my life waiting for an unwanted growth.

Public Health Impact

The issue regarding a two-tier system that begins with a private triage service is that the burden then falls upon you, and the national health service, which is potentially tasked with the difficult work of intervention. Healthcare professionals have observed that these assessments are more sophisticated, and feature extra examinations, versus conventional assessments which screen people aged between 40 and 74.

Preventive beauty is stemming from the ambient terror that eventually we will appear our age as we truly are.

Nonetheless, specialists have commented that "managing the quick progress in private medical assessments will be difficult for national systems and it is essential that these assessments contribute positively to individual wellness and prevent causing additional work – or client concern – without definite advantages". While I imagine some of the clinic's customers will have alternative commercial medical services stored in their finances.

Cultural Significance

Prompt detection is essential to treat major illnesses such as cancer, so the appeal of assessment is obvious. But these procedures access something more profound, an iteration of something you see among certain circles, that self-important group who sincerely think they can extend life indefinitely.

The facility did not initiate our preoccupation with longevity, just as it's not surprising that affluent persons enjoy extended lives. Certain individuals even look younger, too. Cosmetics companies had been resisting the natural progression for hundreds of years before current approaches. Prevention is just a new way of phrasing it, and paid-for preventive healthcare is a natural evolution of youth-preserving treatments.

Along with cosmetic terminology such as "extended youth" and "preventive aesthetics", the purpose of early action is not halting or undoing the years, words with which regulatory bodies have expressed concern. It's about delaying it. It's representative of the extents we'll go to meet unattainable ideals – one more pressure that people used to pressure ourselves with, as if the obligation is ours. The business of proactive aesthetics presents as almost doubtful about youth preservation – particularly surgical procedures and cosmetic enhancements, which seem less sophisticated compared with a skin product. Yet both are rooted in the pervasive anxiety that one day we will show our years as we really are.

Personal Reflections

I've tried a lot of such products. I like the process. And I dare say certain products enhance my complexion. But they don't surpass a good night's sleep, favorable genetics or adopting a relaxed approach. Even still, these represent solutions to something beyond your control. No matter how much you embrace the perspective that maturing is "a perceptual issue rather than of 'real life'", society – and aesthetic businesses – will still have you believe that you are aged as soon as you are past your prime.

In principle, these services and similar offerings are not concerned with escaping fate – that would represent unreasonable. And the benefits of prompt action on your physical condition is evidently a very different matter than preventive action on your wrinkles. But ultimately – screenings, products, whatever – it is all a battle with nature, just approached through slightly different ways. After investigating and made use of every aspect of our planet, we are now trying to colonise ourselves, to overcome mortality. {