I tried the £299 full-body scan, which lets you check health risks in minutes

IIn the 2016 film Passengers, the crew of a spaceship bound for a distant planet had access to a scanning room called an Autodoc, allowing them to instantly diagnose their medical problems and even predict the time of their death.

I am reminded of this and countless other science fiction stories as I remove my robe and, half naked, enter the gleaming capsule of the Neko Body ScanLike Autodoc, it promises to perform a comprehensive examination of my health – inside and out – in minutes, and while it can’t (yet) estimate the time of my death, it can determine whether I’m at immediate or future risk of developing some of the biggest killers and causes of chronic disease.

No matter how healthy I feel on the outside, the prospect of discovering if there is any hidden filth lurking on my health horizon feels too tempting to refuse. The doors to the scanning pod slide shut and a soothing female voice instructs me to close my eyes and remain still.

Neko is the brainchild of Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek, who hopes to do for health what he did for music: completely reshape the industry using the technologies that exist today, rather than the hodgepodge approaches that have been relied upon for decades.

Hjalmar Nilsonne, co-founder and CEO of Neko, said: “Given that 70% of healthcare costs are related to chronic diseases, which are largely preventable or can be significantly delayed through early interventions, it seems pretty clear that the healthcare system that everyone actually wants is a preventive care system that creates health, rather than a drug dispenser for people who are already sick.

“The idea we had was very simple. We needed to create a new category of medical devices that could collect people’s medical information very cheaply and easily, and then we could track it over time.”

A Neko scan costs £299 and involves high-resolution 2D and 3D photography, thermal imaging and detailed cardiovascular measurements to map how the heart is pumping and how blood flows through the arteries, veins and capillaries.

Patients’ grip strength and eye pressure are also measured, then a small blood sample is taken and sent via a vacuum tube to an upstairs lab for processing. Finally, these thousands of data points are crunched by AI and sent to a GP, who performs the final health assessment and delivers it to the customer 15 minutes later.

In my case, the verdict was reassuring: My risk for cardiovascular disease and the dozens of other relatively common ailments—including skin cancer, diabetes, immune system disorders, gout, early signs of glaucoma, and various skin conditions—is low. The only concerns were a slightly elevated white blood cell count—possibly caused by the cold that has since developed—and only average grip strength for my age: a reminder that I need to start strength training again after a summer break.

Other customers got a sharper wake-up call. According to facts From Neko’s first year of operation in Stockholm, during which they scanned 2,707 people aged 22 to 75, 14% of the subjects required further medical attention or monitoring for conditions that the vast majority (90%) were unaware they had. In 1% of cases, patients received potentially life-saving interventions for conditions such as aortic aneurysms and malignant melanomas as a result.

“A man had a cardiovascular abnormality that looked strange, so we booked him in for an ultrasound with our sonographer, who confirmed that it was a serious abnormality,” Nilsonne said. “We sent the referral (to a cardiologist) and within two weeks this man was in surgery. In the normal queue, he might have had to wait six to nine months.”

Prof Louise Thomas, head of the University of Westminster’s Research Centre for Optimal Health, agreed that the potential for such scans is huge. “Early diagnosis of disease is hugely important and has the potential to reduce the burden on the NHS,” she said.

“However, it is difficult at this stage to assess their usefulness without a full understanding of their methodology, the way they analyse the ‘scans’ and, importantly, the depth, breadth and diversity of the training datasets used to generate their AI models and algorithms.”

According to Prof Azeem Majeed, a GP and primary care and public health expert at Imperial College London, the Neko Body Scan is more technologically advanced and includes additional tests, compared to the NHS Health Check programme, which screens people aged 40 to 74 for common disease risks.

However, Majeed said that “dealing with the rapid developments in private medical assessments will be a challenge for the NHS and it is essential that these assessments add value to people’s health and do not create extra work (or anxiety for customers) without clear benefits”.

He added: “It is essential that Neko (and companies offering similar services) monitor their results to see how much benefit they are bringing to their customers.

“While Neko provides some initial feedback on test results, the responsibility for ongoing care will largely lie with the NHS. This could potentially increase the workload for GP practices and other parts of the NHS, particularly if patients have findings that ultimately do not require further treatment.”

Nilsonne said Neko would only contact a patient’s GP if the company’s own in-house experts – including cardiologists, dermatologists and sonographers – had done further investigation. “If a referral outside the Neko system to the NHS is required, the referral will contain a level of detail that makes it immediately clear how that patient should be prioritised,” he said.