Neko’s full-body scan costs £300 and has a 45K waiting list. Is it worth it?

When I celebrated my 50th birthday (some time ago now), my dear wife gave me some sobering advice: “It’s all about maintenance now,” she said. She was not wrong.

From that date, I began to notice that my body’s operating system was not as robust as it once was. I tried to cut down on the alcohol and keep up the exercise. But my joints became creakier. My recovery time from long cycle rides became more sluggish. My sleep was more fitful. An umbilical hernia unexpectedly popped up.

It rapidly dawned on me that my body was decaying. (Martin Amis clearly arrived at his own intimations of mortality quicker than me: he observed that you spend the first 40 years of your life saying ‘Hi’ and the next 40 saying ‘Bye’.) In such circumstances, a maintenance plan is needed.

Maintenance is the promise of Neko Health, a Swedish start-up backed by billionaire Daniel Ek of Spotify that offers a fashionable full-body scan at two London clinics. The data shows that men are 50 per cent less likely to seek medical advice than women, due to some mix of pride, laziness, macho recklessness or a lack of access. As Neko says, regular inspections are mandatory for cars, so why not prioritise our bodies in the same way?

Hjalmar Nilsonne, the co-founder and chief executive of Neko Health, tells me that he wants to transform healthcare in the same way that Elon Musk revolutionised the car industry with Tesla. Nilsonne comes from a family of doctors but rebelled by becoming a software engineer and entrepreneur. His vision for a more effective healthcare system gives consumers better access to their data, in turn allowing them to make more informed choices lifestyle choices. The £299 hour-long session includes a skin scan, blood tests, body and circulation examinations and a doctor’s consultation – cheaper than those from the celebrity-endorsed Prenuvo (from $2,500) and the AI-assisted Ezra (from $1,495), which both offer MRI scans, with heart and spine screenings at an additional cost. 

Jason Goodman, Ezra’s chief commercial officer, says the company already operates in 20 cities in the US and will be launching in London in early 2025. Ezra’s MRI screening, which takes less than an hour, can check for more than 500 different conditions in 13 organs. It can pick up problems, such as prostate cancer, that Neko’s scan would be unlikely to detect. Ezra picks up “something meaningful”, including early stage cancers, in about seven per cent of scans, Goodman says. 

The ethos revolves around proactive healthcare

Back at Neko’s London Marylebone clinic, it’s all pastel shades and smiley staff. The first, and to me most novel, scan is a full-body skin examination. Stripped to my underwear, I step into a brightly lit pod with cameras that record 2,000 images. I later discover that I have an astonishing 580 moles or markings, all recorded in a digital library. Neko can use machine-learning tools to track their evolution in future annual scans. Then follows a standard series of blood, hand grip, electrocardiogram and blood and eye pressure tests, all of which I have undergone elsewhere before.

Tests complete, I am ushered into another pod with revolving doors and a giant screen displaying a slightly ungainly digital avatar and all my health data. Adam Wright, a cheery doctor who splits his time between Neko and the NHS, first asks about my medical history (relatively uneventful apart from an appendectomy), diet (respectable, chocolate aside) and lifestyle (stressful) and then talks me through the findings. “The ethos of what we’re doing here revolves around proactive and preventative healthcare,” he says. “We’re trying to discover subtle changes that can go undetected for a long time which left unmanaged or unfound can lead to future problems.”

It comes as no surprise to learn that my blood pressure, cholesterol levels and BMI are all slightly high (I’m a deadline-junkie journalist). Nor that a more Mediterranean diet, reduced alcohol intake and strength-building exercises are advised to reduce these readings and improve muscle mass. The doctor recommends I wear an Aktiia bracelet to monitor my blood pressure levels; a week later, it’s consistently elevated enough to warrant a GP visit. About one per cent of the 5,000 Neko users in Sweden have been found to have far more serious conditions, such as aortic aneurysms or malignant melanomas. These users are immediately referred to Neko’s specialists, their own doctors or other consultants. Neko’s extensive data helps to inform rapid treatment. 

I ask the doctor whether Neko’s relaxing spa-like ambience is an appropriate place to deliver grim news. He would far rather talk to patients in such surroundings, he answers, than in the middle of a noisy, chaotic public ward. 

Is the body scan worth it? In better-resourced public healthcare systems, most of Neko’s tests would be routinely offered. And Neko’s scans are not designed to detect many medical conditions, such as the torn meniscus in my knee that had been previously diagnosed elsewhere. But it is always a worthwhile exercise to step out of your daily routine and check in on your body. Relieved that my health MOT showed nothing major had yet broken down, I nevertheless resolved to eat less, sleep more, watch my blood pressure and lift weights. Money spent on maintenance is never wasted.