Full-body scans: are Neko Health and the like more panic than panacea?

"Money spent on maintenance is never wasted", said Financial Times innovation editor John Thornhill.

That is the basic rationale behind the latest trend in preventive medicine: full-body scans.

What's all the fuss about?

Unlike traditional CTs or MRIs of a specific part of the body, full-body scans image you from head to toe in only an hour, producing detailed anatomical analysis of organs, bones, muscles and blood vessels.

"Celebrities and influencers are holding them up as a pillar of preventive health to catch problems early on, wherever they're hiding – before they become hard-to-treat diseases," said Time magazine.

The latest is Neko Health, a Swedish start-up backed by Spotify founder Daniel Ek. Since it opened its clinic in London at the end of last year it has become "the hottest ticket" in town, said Gillian Orr in The Times, with a "waiting list of more than 100,000 people all desperate to try out what is being hailed as the future of medicine".

Described as a "full health MOT," the test costs £300, said Emilie Lavinia, The Independent's fitness and wellbeing editor. This "seems expensive for the average person" but "when you break down the cost of everything the Neko scan offers – mole mapping alone is usually fairly costly – it seems much more reasonable".

"This test provides millions of data points that you'd otherwise rack up a much higher cost testing individually."

"The idea we had was very simple", Neko co-founder and chief executive Hjalmar Nilsonne told The Guardian. Given that "70% of healthcare costs are tied to chronic diseases, which are largely preventable or can be greatly delayed by early interventions", we needed to "create a new category of medical device that could collect people's medical information very cheaply and conveniently, then we could start tracking it across time".

What do doctors think?

"Most medical experts are more wary", said Time.

Cost aside – prices of full body scans range from several hundred to several thousand pounds per appointment – "while they give a good basic overview of your anatomy, they don't optimise the view of each organ or system," said Adam Taylor, director of the Clinical Anatomy Learning Centre, Lancaster University, on The Conversation.

It is like looking at a city from a distance, said Dr Heide Daldrup-Link, professor of paediatric oncology at Stanford, told Time. "You might always find a high-rise building, but you won't find a spider."

It is "important" to also note, said Taylor, "that MRI scans cannot detect most preventable diseases" such as heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, which are responsible for most deaths.

On top of that, "there have been some accusations that these private health checks actually burden the NHS because people then unnecessarily bother them with some small piece of information that is picked up in a scan", said Orr.

So is it worth it?

"Absolutely", said Fleur Fruzza in Harper's Bazaar. "I found taking a proactive approach to my health both reassuring and responsible", and "the data supports this".

According to data from Neko's first year of operation in Stockholm – during which it scanned 2,707 people aged 18 to 81 – 14% required further medical attention or monitoring, and in 1% of cases, patients received potentially life-saving interventions.

It may be true that Neko's scans are "not designed to detect many medical conditions" and "in better-resourced public healthcare systems, most of the tests "would be routinely offered", said the FT's John Thornhill.

But "it is always a worthwhile exercise to step out of your daily routine and check in on your body".