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A few months back, I was invited to experience a full-body scan in east London. This diagnostic clinic utilizes electrocardiograms, blood analysis, and a talking skin-scanner to evaluate patients. The company states it can identify multiple underlying cardiovascular and bodily process problems, determine your risk of contracting pre-diabetes and locate suspect moles.

From the outside, the center looks like a spacious crystal mausoleum. Inside, it's akin to a curve-walled relaxation facility with comfortable preparation spaces, private assessment spaces and pot plants. Sadly, there's no pool facility. The whole process lasts fewer than an one hour period, and incorporates multiple elements a largely unclothed scan, multiple blood collections, a test for hand strength and, at the end, through some swift data-crunching, a doctor's appointment. Most patients leave with a relatively clean bill of health but awareness of later problems. Throughout the opening period of service, the clinic says that 1% of its patients received potentially critical information, which is meaningful. The concept is that this information can then be provided to health systems, point people towards necessary care and, finally, increase longevity.

The Experience

The screening process was very comfortable. It doesn't hurt. I liked wafting through their soft-colored spaces wearing their comfortable sandals. Furthermore, I was grateful for the relaxed experience, though that's perhaps more of a reflection on the condition of public healthcare after periods of inadequate funding. Generally speaking, top marks for the process.

Cost Evaluation

The crucial issue is whether it's worth it, which is more difficult to assess. Partly because there is no benchmark, and because a favorable evaluation from me would rely on whether it identified problems – under those circumstances I'd probably be less concerned with giving it excellent marks. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that it doesn't include radiation imaging, brain scans or body imaging, so can solely identify blood irregularities and dermal malignancies. People in my genetic line have been plagued by tumors, and while I was relieved that none of my moles look untoward, all I can do now is live my life expecting an problematic development.

Public Health Impact

The issue regarding a two-tier system that starts with a private triage service is that the burden then falls upon you, and the government medical care, which is potentially responsible for the challenging task of care. Physician specialists have noted that such screenings are more technologically advanced, and incorporate additional testing, in contrast to conventional assessments which screen people aged between 40 and 74.

Proactive aesthetics is based on the ambient terror that eventually we will look as old as we really are.

However, specialists have said that "addressing the fast advancements in commercial health screenings will be challenging for national systems and it is essential that these evaluations add value to people's health and avoid generating additional work – or anxiety for customers – without clear benefits". Though I suspect some of the facility's clients will have alternative commercial medical services stored in their finances.

Cultural Significance

Prompt detection is essential to address serious diseases such as cancer, so the attraction of screening is clear. But such examinations tap into something underlying, an iteration of something you see among certain circles, that vainglorious segment who sincerely think they can live for ever.

The facility did not initiate our focus on longevity, just as it's not unexpected that affluent persons live longer. Various people even appear more youthful, too. The beauty industry had been combating the passage of time for generations before contemporary solutions. Early intervention is just a new way of describing it, and paid-for early detection services is a expected development of preventive beauty products.

Together with aesthetic jargon such as "slow-ageing" and "prejuvenation", the objective of early action is not stopping or reversing time, words with which advertising authorities have taken issue. It's about postponing it. It's representative of the measures we'll go to conform to impossible standards – another stick that individuals used to beat ourselves with, as if the obligation is ours. The market of proactive aesthetics positions itself as almost questioning of age prevention – especially surgical procedures and minor adjustments, which seem less sophisticated compared with a topical treatment. Yet both are rooted in the constant fear that eventually we will appear our age as we truly are.

Individual Insights

I've experimented with numerous such products. I like the experience. And I dare say certain products improve my appearance. But they don't surpass a adequate sleep, favorable genetics or maintaining lower stress. However, these constitute solutions to something outside your influence. However much you accept the perspective that maturing is "a crisis of the imagination rather than of 'real life'", the world – and cosmetics companies – will persist in implying that you are aged as soon as you are not young.

On paper, such screenings and their like are not concerned with avoiding mortality – that would be unreasonable. And the benefits of timely detection on your physical condition is obviously a distinct consideration than early intervention on your facial lines. But ultimately – scans, treatments, whatever – it is essentially a struggle with biological processes, just tackled in slightly different ways. After investigating and utilized every element of our planet, we are now trying to colonise ourselves, to transcend human limitations. {