Regular health check-ups prevent potential disease

Hanoi French Hospital is offering discounted fees on a selection of health check-up packages

In the past, fewer people seemingly contracted dangerous diseases such as cancer, diabetes, or heart disease but these conditions have unfortunately become more common, partly due to longer life expectancies.

People can lead more healthy lives but there is still the impact of pollution, stress, and other dangers.

Despite the increase in such ailments and regular reminders by medical specialists, few people are fully aware of the importance of regular health check-ups and only come to the hospital when illnesses have already become severe, and therefore are more difficult to treat.

Hanoi French Hospital (HFH) is paying more attention to improving the service quality of regular health check-ups to better serve local needs.

With that in mind, its doctors can help answer common questions about regular health check-ups.

What if I don’t like to visit the doctor?

Almost nobody does, but it is something that everyone should do on a regular basis. You may be asking why you should, especially if you are not sick and feel perfectly fine. But even if you lead a healthy lifestyle and feel your body is in top condition, regular health check-ups are extremely vital.

Why are regular health check-ups important?

Most early stage illnesses are asymptomatic and so you remain healthy. Only when the disease flares up will it appear more obvious (for example via fatigue, pain, or fever).

By modern diagnostic methods in combination with examinations, the disease can be detected at an early stage. Therefore, regular check-ups are essential to help doctors detect disease in the asymptomatic stage.

For example, you may not know if you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes until you become ill or have had complications.

Early diagnosis is important because most conditions can improve or even be cured before the disease becomes more severe.

In the US, the rate of women with cervical cancer detected late and surviving after five years is only 15 per cent.

Meanwhile, if detected early, the rate reaches 93 per cent. Similarly, a study of rural Indian women showed that the five-year survival rate with cervical cancer if detected late is only 9 per cent, while in early detection it is 78 per cent.

Prevention is always the best cure and definitely less burdensome and cheaper than treating a disease.

How can a regular health check benefit my health?

Visit your doctor or schedule a health check-up regularly, at least once a year. They can help determine your overall health and whether there are any risks you need to take care of. Health check-ups can either detect conditions early or give you the peace of mind that everything is fine.

When you have a health check, in addition to your doctor’s visit, some of the tests and scans can include a blood count, blood sugar test, blood fat, hepatitis screening, mammogram, ultrasound, electrocardiogram, and more.

Simple tests done regularly can benefit your health immensely and you need to be aware of how important regular testing is.

Why should prevention be my highest priority?

Apart from the benefit of detecting the symptoms of a potential disease in time, prevention also avoids the stress and burden you and your loved ones would have to endure if a disease has already become serious.

Besides this, it is equally important to be reassured that everything is fine and that you are actually fit to do certain activities.

If you take control of your health it will make you feel more energetic and productive every day. Done regularly, check-ups will give you the peace of mind to live an overall healthy lifestyle and to either maintain or achieve good health.

Having good health is not only good for your happiness, but also for your loved ones as well as the wider society.