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Several periods ago, I was invited to take part in a detailed health assessment in London's east end. This diagnostic clinic employs heart monitoring, blood tests, and a verbal skin examination to examine patients. The organization states it can detect multiple potential heart-related and metabolic problems, assess your risk of contracting borderline diabetes and locate potentially dangerous moles.

From the outside, the facility looks like a vast transparent mausoleum. Within, it's akin to a curved-wall spa with inviting preparation spaces, individual consultation areas and pot plants. Unfortunately, there's no swimming pool. The entire procedure requires under an hour, and includes various components a mostly nude screening, multiple blood samples, a assessment of grasping power and, at the end, through some swift data-crunching, a doctor's appointment. Most patients exit with a generally good medical assessment but awareness of later problems. Throughout the opening period of service, the organization reports that a small percentage of its visitors received possibly life-preserving data, which is not nothing. The premise is that this information can then be shared with medical services, point people towards necessary care and, in the end, extend life.

The Experience

My experience was perfectly pleasant. The procedure is painless. I enjoyed moving through their pastel-walled spaces wearing their plush slippers. Furthermore, I appreciated the relaxed experience, though this is probably more of a demonstration on the state of public healthcare after periods of inadequate funding. Generally speaking, 10 out 10 for the experience.

Cost Evaluation

The important consideration is whether the value justifies the cost, which is more difficult to assess. This is because there is no benchmark, and because a glowing review from me would depend on whether it found anything – in which case I'd possibly become less interested in giving it excellent marks. It's also worth pointing out that it doesn't conduct X-rays, brain scans or CT scans, so can solely identify blood irregularities and cutaneous tumors. Individuals in my family tree have been affected by tumors, and while I was comforted that none of my moles look untoward, all I can do now is live my life waiting for an unwanted growth.

Healthcare System Implications

The issue regarding a two-tier system that begins with a private triage service is that the responsibility then rests with you, and the public healthcare system, which is possibly left to do the complex process of intervention. Medical experts have observed that such screenings are higher-tech, and feature supplementary procedures, in contrast to standard health checks which screen people aged between 40 and 74.

Proactive aesthetics is stemming from the pervasive anxiety that someday we will look as old as we truly are.

Nevertheless, professionals have commented that "addressing the quick progress in private medical assessments will be problematic for public healthcare and it is vital that these screenings contribute positively to people's health and prevent causing extra workload – or patient stress – without clear benefits". Though I suspect some of the facility's clients will have other private healthcare options stored in their resources.

Wider Implications

Timely identification is crucial to manage major illnesses such as cancer, so the benefit of assessment is apparent. But such examinations tap into something deeper, an manifestation of something you see among various groups, that proud segment who truly feel they can extend life indefinitely.

The facility did not initiate our focus on longevity, just as it's not surprising that wealthy individuals have longer lifespans. Some of them even appear more youthful, too. The beauty industry had been combating the aging process for hundreds of years before current approaches. Early intervention is just a new way of expressing it, and fee-based preventive healthcare is a natural evolution of preventive beauty products.

Along with cosmetic terminology such as "extended youth" and "early intervention", the purpose of proactive care is not stopping or reversing time, concepts with which regulatory bodies have expressed concern. It's about postponing it. It's symptomatic of the extents we'll go to meet impossible standards – another stick that individuals used to pressure ourselves with, as if the responsibility is ours. The industry of preventive beauty positions itself as almost sceptical of age prevention – particularly surgical procedures and tweakments, which seem less sophisticated compared with a topical treatment. Nevertheless, each are rooted in the pervasive anxiety that one day we will show our years as we truly are.

My Conclusions

I've tested many topical treatments. I appreciate the routine. And I would argue some of them enhance my complexion. But they cannot replace a proper rest, good genes or maintaining lower stress. Nonetheless, these are methods addressing something beyond your control. Regardless of how strongly you accept the interpretation that ageing is "a perceptual issue rather than of 'real life'", culture – and aesthetic businesses – will persist in implying that you are aged as soon as you are past your prime.

On paper, these services and their like are not focused on escaping fate – that would be unreasonable. Additionally, the positives of prompt action on your physical condition is clearly a completely separate issue than proactive measures on your wrinkles. But finally – examinations, products, regardless – it is all a battle with biological processes, just addressed via distinct approaches. Following examination of and utilized every inch of our world, we are now trying to colonise ourselves, to defeat death. {