Preventive Health Check-up

‘Prevention is better than cure’, is a well known adage referring to the importance of physical health and highlighting that our action should be before any health reaction. Health is a valuable present. It is an aspect that cannot be bought and maintained with wealth. Hence comes the importance of preventive health checks, a mechanism to keep a check on your valuable resource – Health.

Preventive Health Check- A step that gives you value:

The benefits of preventive healthcare are manifold. Not only you save the trouble of having to suffer through the symptoms and stress of illnesses, you also get to save on money that would otherwise be spent on hospital costs.

Prevention can be ensured by planning ahead. Everything usually goes systematically if we plan for it earlier. For example the planned effort of getting your children vaccinated in time assures that they are protected against crippling diseases like polio, measles etc.

There are four chronic diseases that account for over 50% of deaths worldwide- heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and type 2diabetes. It is interesting to note that all of these diseases have three main risk factors: poor diet, lack of physical activity and tobacco use. This highlights that if you tackle these risks head on, you can prevent the diseases from developing in the first place. For the correct guidance a preventive health check is needed.

A Word of Caution: Choose your package well!

More and more people are becoming health conscious these days. An increasing number of people are recognizing the need for preventive healthcare. With this, there has been a surge in health checkups being offered by different health centers. If one wants a preventive health check to be of use, one should choose the tests in consultation with his Doctor which depends on:

• Age
• Gender
• Family history of diabetes
• Hypertension
• Cancer (if a parent or sibling had colon cancer – colonoscopy test is done 10 years before the age at which the family member was diagnosed)
• Lifestyle -sedentary life style, smoking, stress, alcohol etc

How often does one need these checkups?

This, too, will depend upon several factors, including age and previous medical history. And if the tests reveal any cause for concern, then the further testing will be decided by the physician in charge.

So be prepared, be healthy and consult a doctor to guide you towards prevention!