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A number of weeks earlier, I was invited to take part in a detailed health assessment in London's east end. The health screening facility utilizes electrocardiograms, blood analysis, and a talking skin-scanner to examine patients. The organization claims it can identify multiple hidden heart-related and metabolic concerns, determine your probability of developing borderline diabetes and detect questionable moles.

When viewed from outside, the facility looks like a large transparent tomb. Within, it's closer to a rounded-wall spa with pleasant dressing rooms, personal consultation areas and indoor greenery. Unfortunately, there's no pool facility. The entire procedure takes less than an hour, and features among other things a mostly nude screening, various blood draws, a assessment of hand strength and, at the end, through quick data-crunching, a doctor's appointment. Typical visitors depart with a generally good bill of health but awareness of future issues. Throughout the opening period of operation, the organization says that a small percentage of its visitors were given potentially critical intel, which is significant. The idea is that these findings can then be used to inform healthcare providers, direct individuals to required intervention and, finally, extend life.

The Screening Process

My personal encounter was quite enjoyable. It doesn't hurt. I enjoyed strolling through their pastel-walled spaces wearing their plush footwear. Furthermore, I was grateful for the relaxed atmosphere, though that's perhaps more of a indication on the condition of national health services after extended time of inadequate funding. Generally speaking, top marks for the process.

Cost Evaluation

The real question is whether the value justifies the cost, which is more difficult to assess. Partly because there is no comparison basis, and because a favorable evaluation from me would be contingent upon whether it found anything – in which case I'd likely be less focused on giving it top rating. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that it doesn't include X-rays, MRIs or computed tomography, so can exclusively find hematological issues and skin cancers. Individuals in my genetic line have been plagued by cancers, and while I was reassured that none of my moles seem concerning, all I can do now is live my life anticipating an unwanted growth.

Healthcare System Implications

The trouble with a two-tier system that begins with a private triage service is that the responsibility then falls upon you, and the national health service, which is likely tasked with the complex process of intervention. Physician specialists have observed that these scans are more technologically advanced, and include extra examinations, versus routine screenings which screen people aged between 40 and 74.

Proactive aesthetics is rooted in the ambient terror that someday we will look as old as we really are.

Nevertheless, specialists have said that "addressing the rapid developments in commercial health screenings will be challenging for national systems and it is vital that these assessments provide benefit to patient wellbeing and do not create additional work – or patient stress – without definite advantages". Although I imagine some of the center's patients will have additional paid health plans tucked into their finances.

Cultural Significance

Timely identification is essential to address serious diseases such as cancer, so the benefit of assessment is obvious. But these procedures access something underlying, an iteration of something you see among specific demographics, that vainglorious segment who honestly believe they can live for ever.

The facility did not create our obsession about longevity, just as it's not news that affluent persons have longer lifespans. Some of them even look younger, too. The beauty industry had been resisting the natural progression for centuries before contemporary solutions. Early intervention is just a new way of describing it, and commercial proactive medicine is a logical progression of youth-preserving treatments.

In addition to cosmetic terminology such as "extended youth" and "prejuvenation", the objective of proactive care is not preventing or reversing time, words with which regulatory bodies have expressed concern. It's about slowing it down. It's indicative of the lengths we'll go to meet unrealistic expectations – an additional burden that people used to beat ourselves with, as if the blame is ours. The market of proactive aesthetics appears as almost doubtful about age prevention – specifically cosmetic surgeries and tweakments, which seem undignified compared with a night cream. Yet both are stemming from the pervasive anxiety that one day we will appear our age as we actually are.

Individual Insights

I've tried many topical treatments. I appreciate the process. Furthermore, I believe certain products make me glow. But they don't surpass a good night's sleep, good genes or adopting a relaxed approach. However, these are approaches for something out of your hands. No matter how much you accept the perspective that growing older is "a perceptual issue rather than of 'real life'", culture – and the beauty industry – will continue to suggest that you are old as soon as you are no longer youthful.

Theoretically, health assessments and comparable services are not about avoiding mortality – that would constitute absurd. Furthermore, the advantages of prompt action on your health is evidently a completely separate issue than early intervention on your facial lines. But ultimately – examinations, products, regardless – it is fundamentally a conflict with biological processes, just tackled in slightly different ways. Having explored and utilized every element of our world, we are now attempting to conquer our own biology, to defeat death. {