A few months ago, I was invited to get a full-body scan in east London. Neko Health is one of several diagnostic clinics that, for a price, uses electrocardiograms, blood tests and a talking skin-scanner to examine you. The company claims it can detect various underlying cardiovascular and metabolic issues, assess your risk of developing pre-diabetes and identify suspect moles.<\/p>\n
From the outside, the centre looks like a vast glass mausoleum. Inside, it\u2019s more of a curve-walled spa with pleasant changing areas, private examination rooms and pot plants. Sadly, there\u2019s no swimming pool. The whole process takes less than an hour, and includes (among other things) a mostly nude scan, various blood draws, a test for grip strength and, at the end, through some swift data-crunching, a GP consultation. Most patients (me included) leave with a relatively clean bill of health but an eye on future issues. In its first year of operation, Neko says that 1% of its patients received potentially life-saving intel, which is not nothing. The idea is that this data can then be used to inform the NHS (or other healthcare providers), point people towards necessary treatment and, ultimately, extend life. Welcome to the age of preventive healthcare?<\/p>\n
Compared with some of the private clinics on the market, Neko, which was set up by Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek and has two outposts in London, is not wildly expensive \u2013 \u00a3299, as compared with the Kardashian-approved Prenuvo, which is coming to London, and costs almost \u00a32,000. Although your money is useless unless you can find a way to skip Neko\u2019s 100,000-person waiting list in the UK or in Sweden, where it\u2019s from. Among those queue-jumpers have been some influencers (and less influential members of the press, like me). You may have seen them on social media, where playing God feels a lot more plausible if you\u2019re wearing a butter-yellow dressing gown<\/a> while bathed in the glow of a ring flash.<\/p>\n Proactive \u2026 Neko\u2019s Spitalfields outpost. Photograph: St\u00e5le Eriksen\/Neko Health<\/p>\n My Neko experience was perfectly pleasant. It doesn\u2019t hurt. I enjoyed wafting through their pastel-walled rooms wearing their Nike sliders. And I also appreciated the unhurried experience, though that\u2019s perhaps more of a reflection on the state of the NHS after years of underfunding<\/a>. On the whole, 10 out 10 for the experience.<\/p>\n The real question is whether it\u2019s worth it, which is harder to parse. Partly because there is no control group, and because a glowing review from me would depend on whether it found anything \u2013 at which point I\u2019d probably be less concerned with giving it five stars on Yelp. It\u2019s also worth pointing out that it doesn\u2019t perform X-rays, MRIs or CT scans, so can only detect blood abnormalities and skin cancers. People in my family tree have been riddled with tumours, and while I was reassured that none of my moles look untoward, all I can do now is live my life waiting for an unwanted growth \u2013 assuming I don\u2019t drown in a flood first<\/a>.<\/p>\n The trouble with a two-tier system that begins with a private triage service is that the burden then lies with you, and the NHS, which is potentially left to do the difficult work of treatment. Prof Azeem Majeed, a GP and expert on primary care and public health at Imperial, told the Guardian last year<\/a> that Neko\u2019s scans were more technologically advanced, and included additional testing, compared with the NHS Health Check programme, which screens people aged between 40 and 74.<\/p>\n Preventive beauty is rooted in the ambient terror that one day we will look as old as we actually are.<\/p>\n However, Majeed said that \u201cdealing with the rapid developments in private medical assessments will be challenging for the NHS and it is essential that these assessments add value to people\u2019s health and do not create additional work \u2013 or anxiety for customers \u2013 without clear benefits\u201d. Though I imagine some of Neko\u2019s customers will have other private healthcare options tucked into their wallets.<\/p>\n Early diagnosis is vital to treat serious diseases such as cancer, so the appeal of testing is obvious. But these scans tap into something deeper, an iteration of something you see among dictators<\/a> and Silicon Valley types, that vainglorious cohort who honestly believe they can live for ever \u2013 or, in the case of Palantir founder and Trump ally, Peter Thiel, aren\u2019t sure humanity should last at all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Into the future \u2026 Neko. Photograph: St\u00e5le Eriksen\/St\u00e5le Eriksen\/Neko Health<\/p>\n Neko did not invent our preoccupation with longevity, just as it\u2019s not news that rich people live longer. Some of them even look younger, too. The beauty industry had been resisting the passage of time for centuries before I first slapped Nivea on to my face as a teenager. Prevention is just a new way of phrasing it, and paid-for preventive healthcare is a natural evolution of these preventive beauty products.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Fashion Statement<\/p>\n Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Along with beauty buzzwords such as \u201cslow-ageing<\/a>\u201d (big in 2025, according to the trend forecasters WGSN), and \u201cprejuvenation<\/a>\u201d (big in my inbox), the goal of prevention is not stopping or reversing time, words with which the Advertising Standards Agency has taken issue. It\u2019s about delaying it. It\u2019s symptomatic of the lengths we\u2019ll go to conform to impossible standards \u2013 another stick that women used to beat ourselves with, as if the responsibility is ours. The business of preventive beauty presents as almost sceptical of anti-ageing \u2013 particularly facelifts and tweakments, which seem undignified compared with a night cream. Yet both are rooted in the ambient terror that one day we will look as old as we actually are.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve tried a lot of these creams. I enjoy the process. And I dare say some of them make me glow. But they aren\u2019t better than a good night\u2019s sleep, good genes or generally being more chill. Even still, these are solutions to something out of your hands. However much you buy Susan Sontag\u2019s reading that ageing is \u201ca crisis of the imagination rather than of \u2018real life\u2019\u201d, society \u2013 and the beauty industry \u2013 will still have you believe that you are old as soon as you are not young.<\/p>\n On paper, Neko and its like are not about cheating death \u2013 that would be absurd. And the benefits of early intervention on your health is obviously a very different matter than early intervention on your wrinkles. But in the end \u2013 scans, creams, whatever \u2013 it is all a battle with nature, just tackled in slightly different ways. Having explored and exploited every inch of our planet, we are now trying to colonise ourselves, to overcome mortality. Or at the very least, iron out its wrinkles.<\/p>\n