What is the difference between preventive care and physical examination?

The core difference is that the goals and action logic of the two are completely different - the physical examination is to find health risks that already exist in the body but have not yet shown symptoms, and are "scouts" of health risks.”； Preventive health care involves intervention from multiple dimensions such as life, nutrition, exercise, etc., to reduce the probability of health problems from the root cause, which is equivalent to building a "protective wall" for health.

I have been doing grassroots health management for almost 7 years, and I have met too many people who confuse the two. The one who impressed me the most is Sister Zhang, who came to me for consultation last year. She is 42 years old. She undergoes high-end physical examinations worth tens of thousands of yuan every year. All indicators are above the critical line. She always feels that "I have no problem with my physical examination, health care." They are all a scam.” As a result, last winter because I stayed up late, worked overtime, and drank for three days, I was hospitalized for acute pancreatitis. After I was discharged from the hospital, I came to see me for treatment. I said that physical examination can only detect whether there is an illness at the moment. If it is not detected, it does not mean that the body is not “yellow light”.

There are indeed two extreme views. One group believes that physical examination is a real necessity, and preventive health care is charged IQ tax. After all, invisible and intangible adjustments are far less tangible than the numbers in a physical examination report.； The other group thinks that if preventive care is taken care of, there is no need for physical examination. If you take good care of your body, why go to the hospital and spend that money.

In fact, neither of these views has touched the ground. Just like when you were in school, you couldn't just wait for the final exam to check whether you were good at it. You didn't even read the book at ordinary times, right? On the other hand, you can't just memorize the book every day, and never bother to write papers to explore your weak points. In the end, you won't know where you are, and your efforts will be in vain. There used to be a 68-year-old man who took various health supplements every day, walked and did Tai Chi. He felt that he was doing a good job in maintaining his health. He refused to have a physical examination for three years in a row. Last year, his son forced him to come for a check-up. A low-dose CT scan showed an 8 mm ground glass nodule on his lung, which was early stage lung cancer. Fortunately, it was not too late. Fortunately, it was not too late. If it was removed, it would be fine. If it were delayed for another two years, the consequences would be disastrous. Do you think his usual precautions are effective? It is definitely useful. At least the physical fitness is good enough, and the recovery after surgery is much faster than that of people of the same age. However, if you can cooperate with the physical examination early, it will not be discovered until the nodule is at risk of malignancy.

To put it bluntly, these two are meant to work together, and there is no way that one can replace the other. The physical examination takes a "snapshot" of your current health. Which indicators are red, which ones are dangling at critical values, and which high-risk items you have in your family history are clearly listed. Preventive care can use this "snapshot" to accurately adjust the plan. For example, if the physical examination shows that you have mild fatty liver and high blood lipids, then the next health care will focus on controlling oil and sugar, adding half an hour of aerobics every day, and drinking less alcohol. After adjusting for half a year, go for a review, and most of the indicators will come back. If you do not take care of your health without doing a physical examination, for example, if you already have high uric acid and you take high-purine seafood supplements every day, then the more you take, the more likely it is that something will happen.