Preventive Medicine

The conditions that account for most premature death — cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, several cancers, respiratory decline — do not begin on the day they are diagnosed. They develop quietly for years, through a window in which they are far more modifiable than they will ever be again. Preventive medicine is simply the discipline of using that window instead of waiting.

This is unglamorous work. It does not photograph well and there is no device to show you. It is also, by a distance, the part of this department most likely to matter to you.

What we look at

• Cardiovascular risk — blood pressure, lipids, family history and the markers your history warrants
• Metabolic risk — how your body handles glucose, over a fortnight if a morning is not enough
• Respiratory health — our Medical Director is a pulmonologist; lung function is a genuine long-term marker and a badly underused one
• Body composition — muscle mass is not vanity, it is one of the better predictors of how the next thirty years go
• Screening and referral — arranged through our partners where your age and history make it appropriate
• The unromantic four — sleep, movement, alcohol, stress. Consistently the highest-yield changes available to almost everyone.

Working alongside your own doctor

This does not replace your GP or any specialist you already see, and it is not meant to. Where something needs proper investigation or treatment, we say so and make sure it gets to the right person — sometimes that is us and often it is not.