Saturday, October 20, 2012

Getting yearly physicals makes intuitive sense

Others worry that the average consumer is not yet ready to
fuel the next round of growth. “China is still at an
investment-led stage of growth,” argues Yin Xingmin, the
deputy director of the China Center for Economic Studies at
Shanghai’s Fudan University.” The country has a per capita
GDP of $5000 — based on the experience in other countries,
until GDP reaches $15,000 China can only rely on investment-
led growth.”
After a gridlocked Golden Week, many questioned whether the
country’s infrastructure is ready to shoulder the happy
burden of leisure spending. Gu Bo, a Beijing-based marketing
executive, planned a family trip to the famous communist
stronghold of Lu Shan. But after seeing stories of the crowds
thronging to the region, she decided to change her plans. “I
saw on TV there were loads of people there” she said. “I
don’t want to be trampled to death, so I returned the train
tickets and cancelled the trip.”
Getting yearly physicals makes intuitive sense—routine
checkups can pick up early signs of disease and get you on
treatment that could save your life. Or can they?
But the latest review, published in the Cochrane Library from
the The Cochrane Collaboration shows that such vigilance do
not reduce the risk of dying from from serious illness like
cancer and heart disease, and may cause unnecessary harm
VIDEO: TIME Explains: Cancer Screening
Why? Danish researchers studied 14 long-term trials (with a
median follow up of nine years) involving 182,880 people,
some of whom were offered general health checks and some who
were not. Nine of the trials found no differences in the
number of deaths during the study period between the groups,
including deaths from heart disease or cancer, two conditions
that are most commonly assessed during checkups. Overall, the
analysis failed to find any differences on hospital
admissions, disability, worry, specialist referrals,
additional visits to doctors or time off work. One trial did
find a 20% increase in diagnoses among those getting more
frequent health checks, and others recorded an increase in
the number of participants using drugs for hypertension, but
these did not translate into better health outcomes.
(MORE: Why People Stick with Cancer Screening, Even When It
Causes Harm)