Demand Is Surging For Full-Body Scans

BY SARA ASHLEY O’BRIEN

The following items first appeared in Sara Ashley O’Brien’s weekly Wellness newsletter.

’ve been seeing a steady drip of people sharing photos and videos of themselves on social media in butter-yellow bathrobes standing on a cylindrical 360-degree body scanner. These posts are all from folks working in tech, media and venture capital who got a “sneak peek” to try out Neko Health’s body-scan technology at its sleek first U.S. clinic in New York City.

It had amassed a wait list of around 25,000 New Yorkers before the location was announced, a company spokesperson said. It opened its doors this month. The Swedish brand is the brainchild of Spotify founder Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, Neko Health’s CEO.

It is the latest in a wave of preventative- health companies hitting the U.S. market, pitching patients on the notion that more information can give them more control over their health. For $499, which people can use HSA or FSA funds to help cover, the “radiation-free” visit includes a skin examination with visual and thermal cameras, a cardiovascular assessment, a bodycomposition analysis and on-site blood-testing. That takes about 30 minutes, then a clinician will meet with patients for another 30 minutes to discuss the results. It aims to help people assess risk of skin cancer, cardiovascular disease and metabolic conditions.

Neko Health opened its first clinic in Stockholm in 2023 before expanding to the U.K. It has another 350,000 on the wait list globally, according to a spokesperson. It recently received $700 million in fresh funding, backed by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, tennis champion Maria Sharapova and musician Will.i.am.

The hype is reminiscent of the flood of social-media posts surrounding Prenuvo’s full-body MRI scans a few years ago. At the time, posts featuring celebrities and influencers clad in medical scrubs posing with Prenuvo MRI machines felt inescapable.

Prenuvo was in the spotlight last month after the actress Busy Philipps revealed that a scan found a lesion in her brain that was later diagnosed as a slow-growing tumor.

Some medical professionals have criticized preventive MRIs as unnecessary. But their potential for early detection, even before symptoms arise, shouldn’t be dismissed, said Dr. Zahi Fayad, director of the Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“We still need to learn which people benefit most, how often to scan them and whether earlier de-tection changes their long-term out --comes,” he said.

While Neko’s focus on getting people engaged with their health is valuable, he said, some of the company’s data findings about health improvements in returning patients should be taken with a grain of salt. He noted that it wasn’t compared to a control group and it’s difficult to tell what contributed to changes. The company acknowledged the statistical limitations in its data report, noting that findings are not proof of cause.

He shared advice for patients interested in getting a scan: “First, tell me what you are hoping to learn. If there is a symptom or a strong family history, we should choose the test that addresses that concern.”

He added, “Neither service should replace recommended cancer screening or attention to blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes risk, exercise and smoking.”

Sleep on it

One of the first things I do every morning is check my Oura Ring to see what sleep score the night yielded for me. It typically falls somewhere in the 80s. I scan to see how much deep sleep and REM I clocked.

In recent years, our collective obsession with sleep optimization has seemingly skyrocketed. Consumers share tips on how to “sleepmaxx” on social media, recommending devices, from wearables to smart mattresses and alarm clocks, along with DIY remedies like “sleepy girl mocktail” concoctions containing magnesium.

Just don’t go overboard with a too-extensive nighttime routine, says Dr. Feby Maria Puravath-Manikat, a sleep-medicine physician in the Bay Area. “Then, it’s become more of a performance versus a ritual where there’s intention.” Kelly Baron, a professor at University of Utah’s division of public health and a clinical psychologist trained in behavioral sleep medicine, helped coin the term “orthosomnia” in 2017, referring to the unhealthy preoccupation with achieving a perfect night’s sleep.

Baron told me she recently had someone come into her clinic “wearing several different trackers and giving me spreadsheets and different analysis.” “I was like, ‘Is any of this helping you or is it making you feel worse?’” she asked the patient.

Oura has faced pushback on the accuracy of its sleep scores. The wearable-ring device maker has stood behind its data’s accuracy and noted that both its algorithm and clinical sleep studies involve some degree of error.

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INEKO HEALTH

Neko Health’s body-scan technology seen at its sleek first U.S. clinic in New York City.