Is health screening just for the 50-plus? Cancer surgeon shares when young Indians should actually get checked

Health screenings aren’t just for those over 50. Young Indians must start checking their health early to catch diseases like cancer before it’s too late.

For many years, the rule has strictly been comfort and complacency. Get yourself checked once you are 50 or older; never before that. Disease age in India outpaces chronological age. We suffer from diabetes, fatty liver disease, and coronary heart disease at least a decade earlier than our counterparts in the West. There is global evidence that colorectal, breast, and stomach cancers have been emerging well before the previous cut-off limits of screening tests.

Is your calendar age lying to you?

It is equivalent to aligning your watch with another country's time zone and being puzzled why you are always late. “As a cancer surgeon, I can tell people one thing for sure. This habit is nothing but a silent killer that is quietly taking the lives of many young Indians,” Dr Arpit Bansal, Laparoscopic & Cancer Surgeon, Hospital Director, Jeevan Jyoti Hospital, Prayagraj, tells Health Shots.

Know your numbers, by the decade

1. There is only one purpose behind screening: To reduce the time to early diagnosis of a disease that needs to be treated rather than managed. Where there is an early disease age, there cannot be a late screening age.
2. Your twenties lay down the foundation: fasting lipids, HbA1c, BP, and waist circumference. Women should begin cervical screening at ages 21-25. Youth is no guarantee. It is just an advantage you may squander.
3. Your thirties are deadly decades in India, especially: Repeat metabolic panels yearly or biannually. Liver tests become important if your waistline is expanding. Fatty liver is a widespread disease. Women should begin self-examination of breasts early on. Begin colonoscopy ten years before the age at which a family member was diagnosed with colon cancer.
4. Expand the scope of investigation in your forties: Mammography for women. Colorectal screening for all, symptomatic or not. A single scan can detect potential trouble brewing inside someone who feels perfectly well. Perfectly well and perfectly fine are not synonymous terms.

The numbers your blood report won't show you

This is what all screening programs overlook. The best clues to your present state of wellness aren't listed on any blood work, but they are the living, functional signs of how your heart, your nerves, and your fitness are doing. They can be measured starting in your twenties, before any disease will actually show up on blood tests at all, and often give you the earliest warnings possible. "Blood tells you where you are, and they tell you where you are going," says the longevity doctor. Pay attention to them early; it's your earliest warning.

Family history beats the textbook

It is not smart screening if you screen everything. Whole-body scans on healthy individuals often discover insignificant spots that turn out to be an unnecessary source of anxiety, biopsy, and damage. Quality screening should be a sniper, not a shotgun. We are looking for signal, not needless noise.

“I practice root cause medicine; chronic illness has a slow story starting years before the actual diagnosis. Screening means learning how to interpret that story when there's still time to change the ending,” says the cancer surgeon.

So to all those young Indians who consider themselves "too young to be concerned," your body and cells do not know that. Get to know your numbers, get to know your family, and stop letting age define your actions. Early detection is the cheapest and kindest form of medicine there is. Utilize it before you think you need it and definitely not when it's too late.

(Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.)