Idea Sharing: Creating the Most Suitable Health Checkup Items for You - Minority#
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Highlights#
Effective health checkups address two questions: what to check, and what to do after the check. ⤴️ ^4986dd37
We need to use probabilities to see if the most likely problems already have bad signs. ⤴️ ^3a104063
Reverse engineer the health check items from disease risk results. ⤴️ ^b56c953c
Risk factors = Gender/Age + Work Status + Lifestyle + Past Health Conditions + Family Medical History + Cancer Screening ⤴️ ^bf81f1bc
Without any medical background or health management experience, how can we assess the potential disease risks these factors may pose? At least from 2023 onwards, we can try to utilize the latest AI large model capabilities (various domestic large models can be used, and you can choose the one you communicate with most smoothly) to tackle this issue. There is almost no difficulty in getting started; let me give you an example.
Gender/Age: Male, 50 years old
Work Status: Ordinary internal office worker, mainly sitting in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day
Lifestyle: Not much exercise (two to three times a month), loves spicy food, loves meat, dislikes vegetables
Past Health Conditions: Previous abnormal findings include high blood pressure, ECG indicating calcification and atrial fibrillation, high uric acid, liver cysts, thyroid nodules
Family Medical History: Mother had colon cancer
Regardless of which model is used, you can input the above information and specify the AI output requirements. Here’s a simple prompt for reference; you can explore and adjust it yourself:
I will provide you with information such as gender, age, work status, lifestyle, past health conditions, and family medical history. Please generate a comprehensive checklist of examination items. Ensure that the checklist covers all possible risk factors, corresponding high-risk diseases, and early screening examination items for those diseases, including but not limited to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, liver diseases, thyroid issues, chronic diseases, and any related hereditary health risks. The examination items should be detailed, specific, and consider the potential impact of personal lifestyle and work environment on health.
This is the content returned to me by GPT; the above is the output obtained after a one-time input.
Currently, I personally use AI to communicate risk items in detail one by one. For example, I will specifically inquire about the high-risk diseases that may exist under the lifestyle and work habits of this age, and after receiving the answer, I will ask it to provide early screening items based on these diseases, ultimately organizing them into a table. Below is the result after multiple rounds of dialogue.
By obtaining the health check items in this way, I can compare them with the health check package to see which diseases are covered by this package and which are not. This allows for personalized adjustments. I personally believe that the more detailed information you provide, the more targeted the analysis of potential risks will be, and it will give suggestions on what items to do.
Based on the past health conditions of my girlfriend's parents, I had a relatively in-depth conversation with GPT, especially regarding the sorting of disease risks related to past conditions, and organized the following content (not directly output by GPT).
⤴️ ^81fdfcf1
Awesome!!! This is simply the ultimate application of AI diagnosis in the context of limited medical knowledge; this is the correct use of AI!
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It's that time of year again to stock up on health check packages for my parents. This content was originally planned to be released on Double Eleven, but if I haven't fully verified its feasibility myself, it could lead to some misunderstandings. So on Double Eleven, I purchased a health check package for my girlfriend's parents based on the content below and had them complete the checkup. After making some small optimizations in thought, this final content was formed.
Compared to the article from two years ago, this content is not a foolproof plan but requires you to spend some time organizing the most suitable health check items. Only after completing this task in the manner described below did I begin to clearly understand their specific risk factors and start to manage the abnormalities in detail in daily life.
Health Checkups Are Definitely Useful#
After searching various platforms, my feeling is that many people have a misconception about health checkups:
Every year the doctor says there’s nothing wrong in the health check report, so how come suddenly there’s a serious illness? Health checkups are useless; minor illnesses are fine, but serious ones can’t be detected.
Health checkups are definitely useful; how to play a key role is reflected in two actions: one is the selection of checkup items, and the other is the attention to abnormal items after the checkup.
For example, for a 50-year-old population, if the checkup items only include the most basic internal and external medicine, blood routine, liver and kidney function, and abdominal ultrasound, it is very difficult to detect potential coronary artery stenosis and arterial plaque problems that may be prevalent in this age group. This can lead to situations where these indicators appear normal, but one day they suddenly experience chest pain and need emergency stenting. This is the first scenario where the health checkup seems to have failed to identify relevant potential risks.
In recent years, we have noticed an increase in the incidence of certain cancers, while the clinical cure rate has also risen. Apart from the role of new drug development, effective health checkups can detect many early-stage cancers, which have a high cure rate, thus increasing both the number of cancer detections and the number of cures. Early detection is the core significance of health checkups.
Effective Health Checkups#
==Effective health checkups address two questions: what to check, and what to do after the check.== Getting sick is a probability game; there is still no magic trick to conquer it all at once, and we need not be anxious that health checkups need to cover every aspect of the body. We should use probabilities to see if the most likely problems already have bad signs.
"Selection of Basic Health Check Items"#
Most of the time, we have already seen a health check package, and the dense list of items can be overwhelming, making it difficult to judge whether the package is reasonable. My logic, based on various experiences over the past two years, is: ==Reverse engineer the health check items from disease risk results.==
First, do not consider the checkup items themselves; instead, clarify the potential risk diseases you may have, and then start from the necessary examination items for early screening of those diseases. This way, you can clearly know which diseases you have ruled out by doing these health check items.
Everyone's health condition is different. How to clearly understand all your disease risks? I have summarized a preliminary formula:
==Risk Factors = Gender/Age + Work Status + Lifestyle + Past Health Conditions + Family Medical History + Cancer Screening==
In this formula, only cancer screening has relatively accurate statistical data that is standardized (there will be a separate chapter later). Other factors are relatively more personalized.
==Without any medical background or health management experience, how can we assess the potential disease risks these factors may pose? At least from 2023 onwards, we can try to utilize the latest AI large model capabilities (various domestic large models can be used, and you can choose the one you communicate with most smoothly) to tackle this issue. There is almost no difficulty in getting started; let me give you an example.==
==Gender/Age: Male, 50 years old==
==Work Status: Ordinary internal office worker, mainly sitting in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day==
==Lifestyle: Not much exercise (two to three times a month), loves spicy food, loves meat, dislikes vegetables==
==Past Health Conditions: Previous abnormal findings include high blood pressure, ECG indicating calcification and atrial fibrillation, high uric acid, liver cysts, thyroid nodules==
==Family Medical History: Mother had colon cancer==
==Regardless of which model is used, you can input the above information and specify the AI output requirements. Here’s a simple prompt for reference; you can explore and adjust it yourself:==
==I will provide you with information such as gender, age, work status, lifestyle, past health conditions, and family medical history. Please generate a comprehensive checklist of examination items. Ensure that the checklist covers all possible risk factors, corresponding high-risk diseases, and early screening examination items for those diseases, including but not limited to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, liver diseases, thyroid issues, chronic diseases, and any related hereditary health risks. The examination items should be detailed, specific, and consider the potential impact of personal lifestyle and work environment on health.==
==This is the content returned to me by GPT; the above is the output obtained after a one-time input.==
==Currently, I personally use AI to communicate risk items in detail one by one. For example, I will specifically inquire about the high-risk diseases that may exist under the lifestyle and work habits of this age, and after receiving the answer, I will ask it to provide early screening items based on these diseases, ultimately organizing them into a table. Below is the result after multiple rounds of dialogue.==
==By obtaining the health check items in this way, I can compare them with the health check package to see which diseases are covered by this package and which are not. This allows for personalized adjustments. I personally believe that the more detailed information you provide, the more targeted the analysis of potential risks will be, and it will give suggestions on what items to do.==
==Based on the past health conditions of my girlfriend's parents, I had a relatively in-depth conversation with GPT, especially regarding the sorting of disease risks related to past conditions, and organized the following content (not directly output by GPT).==
"Selection of Cancer Early Screening Check Items"#
After organizing the basic items, we can look at a separate section—cancer early screening.
It is still difficult to talk about cancer without fear; in my view, a very important purpose of health checkups for middle-aged and elderly groups is cancer early screening. Any cancer that can be detected early has a relatively good survival rate.
So how do we determine which cancers need screening? According to authoritative data, the statistics on the incidence of malignant tumors in China can be obtained as follows: there is a journal called "Chinese Journal of Oncology," which periodically publishes literature indicating the prevalence of malignant tumors in China.
By opening the Chinese Medical Journal Full Text Database and searching for malignant tumor prevalence data, you will see the latest prevalence study published in 2023 based on 2016 data. Some may feel that the 2016 data is outdated, but my personal understanding is that I only need this data to create a list of the cancers that Chinese people most frequently suffer from or have a high risk of death. Therefore, as long as it reflects a recent trend, it is sufficient. The complete data from 2016, analyzed and published in 2023, is adequate for the average person. If you need to look up specific information about a certain type of cancer, there will be updated data available as supporting literature that you can search for as needed.
Based on this literature, I extracted several groups of data ranking the mortality rates of malignant tumors, categorized by gender and region. The method of use is to filter out high-incidence malignant tumors based on your gender and region.
The literature includes statistical data on both incidence and mortality rates. For me personally, in the context of health check screening, I naturally pay more attention to those with higher malignancy and poorer prognosis, i.e., higher mortality rates. From the results, we can see that the types of tumors for urban males and rural males are the same, just in a different order, while rural females and urban females have slight differences in tumor types.
With the above information, the next step is to clarify the screening methods. I referred to the National Cancer Prevention and Control Platform and specific cancer screening guidelines (searching for cancer name + treatment guidelines) to find corresponding reasonable examination items. The table below is the result I organized; regarding frequency, I provided it based on the usual recommendations for people over 65. If you are 40, 50, or 55 years old, for projects that have no abnormalities and involve radiation, you can extend the screening time appropriately, rechecking every 2-5 years (based on health conditions).
Package Selection#
After organizing all the basic items and cancer early screening items, it’s time for package matching. In this logic, this step becomes the most mechanical action, which is matching. However, this matter may have different thoughts for groups with different budgets.
High budget (3000-10000): It is recommended to go directly to a top-tier hospital's health check center to customize the checkup items according to needs. The core advantages of hospitals are twofold: one is that the examining physicians are more professional and can even provide clinical diagnoses directly in the report; the second is that if any issues are found, the same examination items do not need to be repeated during subsequent consultations or even hospitalization, as hospitals trust their own test results, while doctors usually refer to health check center results but still require re-examination.
Normal budget (1000-3000): Most examination items are placed in health check centers, with a few items screened by hospitals, such as gastrointestinal endoscopy, enhanced CT, etc. If parents are willing to undergo gastrointestinal endoscopy, do not choose capsule endoscopy, as it cannot obtain lesions, remove polyps, and is more expensive. If parents are unwilling to undergo gastrointestinal endoscopy, you can choose the increasingly popular Changweiqing detection kit in recent years. This type of detection kit focuses on colon cancer, but if there are inflammations, ulcers, or polyps in the gastrointestinal tract, it will be difficult to detect, making it a sort of fallback option.
Low to medium budget (under 1000): Focus on high-risk diseases caused by past conditions, lifestyle, and work habits when selecting items, and allocate any excess budget to the top three or five cancer early screening items.
A small detail to save money is to pay attention to the medical insurance policies in the location of your parents' social insurance and see which scenarios are supported by the annual pooling amount. If outpatient pooling is supported and the amount is around 1000 or 2000, then some radiology and endoscopy projects can be chosen to do at the hospital, saving some money. For example, this time my girlfriend's mother's retirement employee insurance covered the gastrointestinal endoscopy, with a total of 1900, and after pooling, the out-of-pocket cost was less than 300. Of course, this one project basically used up all her pooling amount.
Interpretation of Health Check Reports#
The above extensive discussion focused on how to choose health check items; the second part will discuss the interpretation of abnormal items in health check reports. Based on my experiences with various health check report interpretation services over the past two years, unless it is someone who has a long-term understanding of you, the overall service tends to be quite mechanical. After hearing a couple of them, I feel I can do this job too. Moreover, now with the support of AI, if you don’t mind the hassle, you can actually extract all the abnormal items and let GPT give you some suggestions, focusing on which abnormal items need to be consulted in specialist clinics. This way, before your appointment, you can roughly know what the possible issues are and what examinations may need to be done to clarify further. Coupled with the doctor's professionalism, you can have a clear and precise understanding of these abnormal items.
I have summarized a few basic logics for reference:
Comparing Abnormal Indicators: Compare the abnormal items from consecutive 2-3 years of check reports, paying attention to changes in abnormal values and descriptions.
If it is blood biochemical or other functional indicators, if the same indicator is abnormal for 2-3 consecutive years, then a hospital visit for further examination is necessary; if the same indicator suddenly becomes abnormal, pay attention to personal symptoms. If there are symptoms, definitely go to the hospital for examination; if there are no symptoms but you are cautious, you can adjust your lifestyle and recheck the indicators after 1-2 months. If you have a good mindset, you can choose to wait for a year to see the next health check. Based on my report reading experience, liver function, kidney function, urinalysis, uric acid, and blood lipids are indicators that can easily become abnormal, but they are also closely related to daily lifestyle. If you have been "misbehaving" quite a bit in the past year, when these indicators are abnormal, it serves as a yellow light warning that needs timely adjustment. If it is an ultrasound or radiology report, the core of comparing abnormal content lies in the description and size, such as how the size of nodules or cysts has changed. If nodules or cysts have increased in size for two consecutive years, it is best to start follow-up visits at the hospital, where the doctor can provide a more precise re-examination cycle. If the description of nodules or cysts changes, for example, last year only size was described, and this year the description includes terms like "ground-glass," "punctate strong echoes," "calcification," etc., both AI and doctors will be more cautious regarding these terms, making regular follow-ups a certainty.
Combining Multiple Indicators: Looking at biochemical and ultrasound/radiology indicators separately may only indicate a possibility, which can be emphasized or postponed to the next cycle, but combining them may yield more information.
For example, in the case of the thyroid, if an ultrasound indicates a nodule, and the thyroid function indicators are normal, then observation is likely sufficient. However, if the thyroid function indicators are abnormal, a hospital specialist visit is necessary, as there is a high probability of "hyperthyroidism" or "hypothyroidism." Similarly, for the liver and kidneys, if an ultrasound indicates cysts, stones, calcifications, etc., and the biochemical indicators are normal, observation is acceptable; if the biochemical indicators are abnormal, a hospital follow-up visit is required.
Combining Past Conditions: If there has been a certain disease in the past, the items in the health check can also serve as a re-examination or screening for related items.
For example, if certain medications are taken for osteoporosis or other related diseases, blood potassium, blood calcium, and liver and kidney functions may become abnormal due to medication, and daily medication may not pay attention to such situations. It is also rare to be cautious enough to recheck liver and kidney functions after taking medication for one or two months; health checks can serve as an evaluation based on current medication.
Similarly, for chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and coronary heart disease, these diseases usually require long-term medication and may overlook re-examinations. People with such diseases should pay special attention to whether related indicators are within a reasonable and normal range while on medication. Here, "normal" refers to the patient's condition; for example, the normal blood lipid levels for coronary heart disease patients need to be lower than the standard normal values; for gout patients, the uric acid levels need to be lower by 50-100 than the normal values to be safer. If health check results show that related indicators do not meet standards, hospital visits for medication adjustments and re-examinations are necessary. Avoid self-prescribing or adjusting medications; with the internet being so developed, it is easy to search for self-diagnosis examples that lead to regret.
Avoiding medical issues is a mindset many people have at this stage. I have a small feeling to share with you: discovering problems without obvious symptoms may be the true early stage of illness or sub-health risk. At this stage, many issues can be resolved through genuine means of "not needing injections, not needing medication, and no need for health products," thus restoring health stability.
Getting sick is a probability, and often this probability can be controlled to the lowest level by human effort, leaving the rest to fate.
Conclusion#
In the past, I also liked to rely on ready-made health check plans and preferred links to be sent to me. However, after various experiences this year, I gradually felt that the key to disease prevention is having a clear understanding of one's own health status and being familiar with and understanding one's own disease conditions. Only then can one truly obtain reasonable and efficient medical advice and effectively avoid disease risks. These matters are indeed very energy-consuming and require serious and diligent attention to achieve good results. Although long-term health management is a long and difficult road, it can indeed start with planning a reasonable health check for oneself and one’s family.
If this article still does not resolve your confusion, feel free to message or leave a comment for communication. If this article has helped you, please like and share it, as this will greatly assist me.
*The article was first published on the public account: Mr. Ma
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