My knowledge of how well my body is functioning is extensive.
Call it a perk or a hazard of the job, but as the result of many, many scans over the years in the quest to find the best, I know my exact cholesterol levels (high), my blood pressure (low), and lot of other bits of information I can — and often do — dole out at the drop of a hat, should someone be unfortunate enough to enquire after the state of my health at a dinner party.
So, yes, extensive knowledge. Or so I thought, until I had a Prenuvo. Touted as the gold standard in proactive health screenings, with over 175,000 scans performed across the US and Canada since first launching in 2018, Prenuvo claim that 1 in 20 have resulted in a “potentially life-saving finding”.
I went in for a full body MRI ahead of today’s launch (November 24) into the UK. And, like the many celebrity fans (including Kim Kardashian, Eva Mendes, Kate Hudson, and Cindy Crawford, who’s an investor in the company), I donned my scrubs, removed every single one of my multiple earrings so the metal didn’t become projectile, and lay down inside the tube ready to have my body scanned from head to ankle.
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The experience itself was probably broadly what you’d imagine; it’s noisy, and it’s not terribly fun to be in a tube for around 45 minutes without moving a muscle (though the staff put a little ball in my hands that I could squeeze to tell them if I needed something, and I was wearing earphones allowing communication where necessary, which was reassuring).
On checking in upstairs, I’d considered declining the offer of a TV show to watch during the scan, but during the moments where my old friend panic set in, I found the familiarity of Friends helpful. This was particularly the case when instructions were issued for me to exhale then hold my breath for several seconds, focussing as fully as I possibly could on The One With The Blackout during those moments.
As I left the scan, the radiographer approached me looking a little perplexed. “It says here you’ve never had abdominal surgery; are you sure that’s the case? It looks a little like someone may have left a foreign object in your stomach.” Cue a crazed call to my mum during which I accused her of withholding essential medical information from me and, after believing her cries of innocence, a week of wondering if aliens had at some point abducted me and sneakily operated on me.
When my results arrived, the cause of the radiographer’s concern was revealed: a pocket of gas. And here lies the first problem with Prenuvo; yes, they were just trying to ascertain that the information I’d shared was correct, but what was actually just an innocuous bit of wind winding its way through my body worried me for a week.
Another obvious issue is that of cost. It’s expensive. At £2,499 for the full body scan, this isn’t going to be an option for many — though the Boston branch of Prenuvo has instituted a system in which cheaper or free scans for those from different socioeconomic groups are subsided by paying customers, something that Dr Tahreema Matin, who runs me through my full results over a zoom session, tells me she hopes will be baked into more clinics.
There is no denying, however, that this is truly a comprehensive scan and as such can be really helpful, especially when monitoring anything you may have a predisposition to, and seeking peace of mind. For example, there’s been a lot of cancer in my family, and as such I’ve spent most my adult life with the hovering fear that maybe, just maybe, some cells were clustering within me to finish me off. When Dr Matin told me there were no concerning masses in my body, I felt a huge wash of relief (though Prenuvo warn that a clear reading from their scans don’t mean you shouldn’t skip cancer screenings as recommended by your GP).
Equally as cheering was the news that my brain showed no damage courtesy of my genetic high cholesterol, that my digestive system was in good working order, and that no aneurysms are currently loitering in any of my vessels.
I’m told on the call that my scan is “good news”, that I should consider mine a body in fine fettle — but the informational findings act as a warning that while that’s the case at the moment, I do need to keep an eye on things. My back has three areas of mild concern – all classic signs of having spent a lot of time at a desk, including a bit of a bulging disc and lumbar spine with some wear and tear. The advice is measured and sensible: pilates, yoga, postural changes, not being a complete fool by lugging heavy suitcases around, and moving regularly when spending hours at a computer.
Another curious finding confirmed to me that the suspicion that I hurt my knee while embarking on Couch to 5k during the early throes of the pandemic – a suspicion roundly shrugged off by doctors when I asked them about it – was founded, and I now have a little cyst of water behind my knee that I will need physio to get rid of. Though it’ll no doubt be a nuisance to sort, doing so will stop it from developing into something more difficult to solve, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to address it now.
Some detractors warn of the information overload of these scans and, yes, I did come away wondering if it was helpful to know the precise thickness of my uterus lining and that I have some entirely benign cysts in my liver – but, then, perhaps future scans’ success will rely on this initial information. I’ve made the executive decision not to dwell on the various “informational findings” that I can’t do anything about.
On balance, while Prenuvo’s launch into London will be divisive, I think its presence is positive, a sign that preventative scans are becoming thoroughly entrenched in our culture and, while there are issues with access, there’s no escaping that prevention is better than cure. That in mind, I’ve booked in to see Louisa Drake for postural analysis, have thinned out the contents of my handbag, will see that physio, and suspect I’ll book another scan in a year to make sure things are still all good with my internals.
The sole downside of having all that information at my fingertips? I’m about to get a whole lot more boring at dinner parties just in time for party season. Sit next to me at your peril.
