What are the things that you do to keep yourself healthy? Your mind might jump straight to the run you do a couple of times a week, or the choices you make about what to eat, the amount of sleep you manage to get each night or the friends who make you feel seen and heard. And you’d be right. These are all things that keep us healthy.
But what about noticing when something might not be quite right with your health? What can we do to help identify problems early and get the help we might need?
You may have heard about screening tests to detect certain conditions, for example, the PSA blood test (prostate-specific antigen, a protein produced by the prostate gland which, if high, may be a sign of prostate cancer), or a mammogram scan which can detect breast cancers that may be too small to feel.
Going for screening tests when you’re invited by the NHS is one of the most important things you can do; picking up and diagnosing certain health conditions or diseases at an early stage, like cancer, means that they are more likely to be treated successfully.
Another way that we can take some control over our health is to learn how to equip ourselves with the right knowledge about what to look out for and what home health checks we can do. This can make an enormous difference.
