| > People walked out of their appointments having been told they had a condition they might not have known about before. But those additional diagnoses didn’t seem to save lives. Knowing about a particular condition didn’t, in these studies, correlate with better health outcomes. Duh...
I am guessing a lot of these diagnoses require lifestyle changes (instead of med) that the patients wont do, e.g. pre-diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity etc But it would be wrong to say that these visits are a waste. > Annual physical exams can “do more harm than good” Key word being "can", one can say this for literally for anything. They chose one bizarre case that led to expensive follow-ups and a bleeding during the procedure. Most annuals likely dont lead to any follow-ups at all. Let alone follow-ups for a possible aortic aneurysm. > “I'm not sure you need an annual visit to the physician. You're very unlikely to have any serious diseases that haven't shown symptoms.” A disease does not have to be life threatening to show symptoms and even life threatening diseases (e.g. certain cancers in women) can have no symptoms until you are beyond the point of no return. Sometime a person has "symptoms" that they think is a part of life and would never go to the doctor for if not for an annual physical. e.g. I personally know people who have had serious vitamin deficiencies found out through annual tests which they got after many years. Their "symptoms" were lack of energy, focus, hair loss, mood swings, sadness etc. Something most people probably wont go to the doctor for. A few months on high potency supplements and their quality of life changed considerably. Would this be classified as a "serious disease"? |