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A number of months earlier, I received an invitation to take part in a detailed health assessment in London's east end. This diagnostic clinic employs heart monitoring, blood analysis, and a voice-assisted skin analysis to assess patients. The facility claims it can spot numerous hidden circulatory and energy conversion problems, evaluate your probability of developing early diabetes and detect suspect skin growths.

Externally, the clinic appears as a spacious glass mausoleum. Internally, it's akin to a rounded-wall wellness center with pleasant dressing rooms, personal consultation areas and potted plants. Sadly, there's no pool facility. The entire procedure takes less than an one hour period, and includes various components a predominantly bare examination, multiple blood samples, a measurement of hand strength and, at the end, through some swift data-crunching, a GP consultation. Typical visitors depart with a relatively clean health report but attention to later problems. During the initial year of operation, the clinic reports that a small percentage of its visitors were given perhaps critical intel, which is not nothing. The premise is that this information can then be used to inform healthcare providers, direct individuals to necessary treatment and, finally, extend life.

The Experience

The screening process was quite enjoyable. There's no pain. I liked moving through their soft-colored spaces wearing their comfortable sandals. And I also valued the unhurried process, though that's perhaps more of a reflection on the state of government medical systems after years of financial neglect. Generally speaking, top marks for the experience.

Worth Considering

The important consideration is whether the value justifies the cost, which is more difficult to assess. Partly because there is no comparison basis, and because a glowing review from me would rely on whether it detected issues – in which case I'd likely be less concerned with giving it five stars. Additionally, it's important to note that it doesn't include X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging or CT scans, so can solely identify hematological issues and skin cancers. Individuals in my family history have been riddled with tumors, and while I was relieved that my pigmented spots appear suspicious, all I can do now is live my life waiting for an concerning change.

Healthcare System Implications

The issue regarding a two-tier system that commences with a commercial screening is that the responsibility then lies with you, and the government medical care, which is likely left to do the complex process of care. Healthcare professionals have commented that these scans are more sophisticated, and feature additional testing, versus conventional assessments which examine people aged between 40 and 74.

Proactive aesthetics is based on the constant fear that eventually we will look as old as we truly are.

Nevertheless, specialists have stated that "managing the fast advancements in private medical assessments will be difficult for public healthcare and it is vital that these assessments provide benefit to individual wellness and do not create additional work – or client concern – without definite advantages". Though I suspect some of the center's patients will have additional paid health plans available through their resources.

Wider Implications

Timely identification is crucial to manage significant conditions such as cancer, so the benefit of assessment is apparent. But these scans connect with something more profound, an manifestation of something you see with specific demographics, that vainglorious segment who honestly believe they can achieve immortality.

The clinic did not invent our obsession about longevity, just as it's not news that rich people enjoy extended lives. Some of them even seem less aged, too. Cosmetics companies had been resisting the natural progression for centuries before contemporary solutions. Early intervention is just a contemporary method of expressing it, and paid-for preventive healthcare is a expected development of preventive beauty products.

In addition to beauty buzzwords such as "extended youth" and "early intervention", the purpose of prevention is not halting or reversing time, concepts with which regulatory bodies have taken issue. It's about delaying it. It's indicative of the lengths we'll go to conform to unattainable ideals – another stick that individuals used to criticize ourselves about, as if the responsibility is ours. The market of preventive beauty positions itself as almost sceptical of youth preservation – especially surgical procedures and tweakments, which seem undignified compared with a night cream. Yet both are stemming from the constant fear that one day we will appear our age as we truly are.

My Conclusions

I've tried a lot of such products. I enjoy the process. Furthermore, I believe various items improve my appearance. But they aren't better than a proper rest, good genes or maintaining lower stress. Even still, these constitute approaches for something beyond your control. Regardless of how strongly you accept the reading that growing older is "a perceptual issue rather than of 'real life'", the world – and aesthetic businesses – will continue to suggest that you are aged as soon as you are past your prime.

Theoretically, these services and their like are not about avoiding mortality – that would constitute absurd. Additionally, the positives of timely detection on your wellbeing is obviously a completely separate issue than preventive action on your aging signs. But ultimately – screenings, products, any approach – it is all a battle with the natural order, just addressed via somewhat varied methods. Having explored and utilized every aspect of our planet, we are now attempting to conquer our own biology, to defeat death. {