Top Health Checks That Could Save Your Life

This week on Real Health, I’m doing a follow on from last week’s show, where I gave you top tips to measure your health. For this episode, I’m looking at the best tests and screenings you should be getting that will tell you where your health is at.

From skin checks to diabetes screenings, we have it all here.

Joining me to take us through his top health checks that could save your life is Professor Carl Vaughan, Consultant Cardiologist at CUH, Mercy Hospital and Bons Secours.

Professor Vaughan says health checks are important because we can’t always rely on symptoms to tell us something might be wrong: “I think symptoms are very important and they are a great driver...but a lot of what we screen for are for things that won’t present with symptoms until late.”

Professor Vaughan says scheduling a health screening is something people can do, to ensure they stay well: “it's not necessarily just a search for diseases. It is a search for wellness as well as disease. You can identify something that may be incubating in your body for the future and head it off before it becomes an advanced disease or does damage that cannot be subsequently fixed in future years.”

One of Carl’s top health screenings is a blood pressure check, something he says is important to have tested: “Blood pressure has no symptoms. You can’t guess what it is. You have to measure it and it can be done in five minutes. It's an example of a simple health check that can be done by anyone themselves or in a doctor’s surgery, pharmacy or clinic.”

For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to: independent.ie/podcasts/the-re…health-podcast/

And you can get in touch - I’m @KarlHenryPT on Instagram and Twitter and realhealth@independent.ie.

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