TIM SPECTOR: THE HEALTH CHECKS ALL OVER-60S SHOULD GET
When you reach 60, you’re more likely to develop chronic conditions and cancer and you’ll notice that friends start getting ill. A new survey shows that Britons now have a shorter lifespan, on average becoming unhealthy at 60.7 years – with Britons being unhealthier than most other countries, except the US. In these countries, getting routine blood tests and checkups is an annual occurrence to spot potential health conditions early.
You may have a friendly, forward-thinking GP who offers to check key markers of heart and metabolic health but, in many cases, you have to take things into your own hands and seek out these tests yourself.
As a scientist who co-founded a gut health company, and having had dozens of private tests myself, I would avoid most pricey doctors or Harley Street-type laboratories that cost thousands. However, there are providers, like Thriva and Randox Health, that offer at-home testing for less than £50, as well as having more reasonably-priced high street clinics.
I am a real advocate for people looking after themselves and understanding their own health status even if not ill. Here is a list of my top recommendations, starting with the easiest and most essential.
Blood sugar to check for type 2 diabetes
Price: Free on the NHS or from £20 online
Frequency: Once a year
It’s really common to be prediabetic or have early type 2 diabetes without knowing about it. It increases the risk of heart disease, and dementia so getting an idea of your glucose levels is important.
A HbA1c test (which stands for glycated haemoglobin) is the gold-standard, as it estimates the last three months’ glucose levels in your blood. It does this by detecting the accumulated amount of sugars that stick to your blood cells and, because blood cells live for 120 days, it reflects a much longer time frame than other tests, like your fasting blood sugar, which is impacted by a poor night’s sleep and what you ate for dinner the night before.
This test may be offered for free as part of the NHS “midlife MOT” for adults aged 40 to 74 every five years, or you can buy one online and send it away in the post for analysis.
Cholesterol to check your heart health
Price: Free on the NHS and in some pharmacies or online from £37
Frequency: Once a year
I recommend getting cholesterol levels checked annually. The result to focus on is your non-HDL cholesterol, which is the “bad” cholesterol that raises the risk of heart disease. You want that reading to be as low as possible.
The NHS offers this test for free once every five years for people aged 40 to 74, while some pharmacies will also check this for free. Alternatively, you can buy the test online or go private.
The results will determine whether you might be suitable for statins, which reduce your rate of heart disease and stroke between a quarter and a third and may have other advantages, like lowering levels of inflammation.
If you have the money and are worried about your heart health, you might want to get Apo A and Apo B tests (£40 each). These are proteins that stick to fat particles. Studies have shown that measuring levels of them is more accurate at predicting your risk of poor heart health than checking your cholesterol levels.
DEXA scan for bone density
Price: Free on the NHS or from £150
Frequency: Once a year
A DEXA scan is an optional extra. It’s a type of X-ray that calculates your bone density, which will detect whether you have osteoporosis.
They’re available on the NHS for over-50s who are at risk of osteoporosis. If you have had a fracture in the past or have a very strong family history of osteoporosis, it’s worth getting one.
Inflammation to check your cancer risk
Price: From £40
Frequency: Once a year
I would also advise everyone to test their hsCRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein) levels (from £40). It is produced by the liver and it is currently the best marker of chronic inflammation in the body.
Research consistently shows that inflammation is the driver of so many health problems: heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and dementia.
Your result increases with age but should be as low as possible. If your levels are raised, this is worse than having high cholesterol – you need to do something about it.
An online cognition test for brain health
Price: Free
Frequency: Once a year
Many people are worried about getting dementia. I would recommend getting a baseline cognition test. You can do it online in about 10 minutes. You can retest yourself every year or two and monitor your progress.
I use one from a website called Food for the Brain after dementia expert colleagues recommended it. The tests include graded naming (which checks how well you can pronounce tricky words), verbal fluency and paired associates (which checks your memory). It will provide a baseline reading so you can compare how you are doing each year.
There are many more expensive tests and scans available that predict whether you are likely to get dementia. These typically involve a full genetic analysis to see if you have the APOE4 gene (having one copy triples the risk of dementia and two copies increases the risk 12-fold). I’ve had this done but, unless you are really into brain health, I wouldn’t advise getting these.
I was nervous about getting a brain scan. I have friends with brain tumours – it’s getting more common. It didn’t show a tumour but it did show these white spots, signalling vascular damage in my brain. That means I’m at risk of getting vascular dementia, so I should pay general attention to my health but it was a bit non-specific and I could have done without it.
Walk for six minutes to see how long you’ll live
Price: Free
Frequency: Once a year
Your overall fitness level is worth assessing. High-end gyms offer VO2 max testing, which I had done recently on Harley Street and it’s expensive and complex. A simpler test that is nearly as good in predicting longevity and mortality is the six-minute walking test.
You do a timed walk – with rests if needed – for precisely six minutes and record how many metres you covered in that time. You can do this at home by measuring out a 20 to 30-metre stretch in your garden or street.
Generally, if you can get to 400m in that time, you’re doing pretty well.
Blood pressure to protect against heart attacks and stroke
Price: Free on the NHS or home monitors from £20
Frequency: Once a week
Checking your blood pressure every week or two is the most important thing for your heart. Everyone should buy themselves a home monitoring kit, such as the £29 version from Omron that I use. You put the cuff around your arm and your blood pressure appears on the monitor.
You’ll find that your blood pressure will creep up with age and it’s one of the simplest things to keep an eye on. If it gets too high (which would be 135/80 or higher on a home machine), you should go to your GP who may recommend medication, which could be life-saving as it brings down the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke. Eating plenty of plants and exercising helps reduce your risk too.
A skin cancer check
Price: £250
Frequency: Every three years
Your 60s are the peak age for developing melanoma, basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas. They become more common with age because of the cumulative lifelong exposure to UV radiation from the sun.
GPs are not trained to spot skin cancer or diagnosing skin problems so will refer you to hospital, where you could have a wait. Even if you go privately, it can be a three-month wait to see a specialist.
There are several places now that offer skin checks and mapping, including my wife, who is a dermatologist and just launched Skintell. Over 15 minutes, advanced cameras take photos of skin lesions in incredible detail, which are then selected by AI and sent to an expert dermatologist online to diagnose. I think this is the future of skin check-ups.
If you’re at-risk (if you have spent a lot of time in the sun, have a fair complexion, burn easily and have lots of moles) I’d advise getting this check annually. Otherwise, every three to four years should be fine.
Microbiome and colon checks for gut health and bowel cancer
Price: Free on the NHS or from £40
Frequency: Every two years
For your gut health, there are two things you can do. The first is a faecal immunochemical test (FIT) that tests for colon cancer based on blood in your stool. The current figures in the NHS are showing a 40-70 per cent sensitivity in picking up colon cancer with a single stool test. It’s offered every two years to people aged 50 to 74.
If you buy one commercially, you can get a more sensitive one that will get you more towards 70 per cent which, if you have the money, is probably worth paying for.
If you have a little bit more money, you could, as is routinely done in many other countries, have a colonoscopy. It costs around £2,000-£3,000 and is more invasive but has a 94 per cent sensitivity of finding a cancer. The good thing about finding colon cancer is that it is treatable if you get it in time.
Assessing your overall gut health is important and if you can spare the cash, £150 to £200, getting a test like ZOE’s gut microbiome test is like getting an overall blood pressure for your metabolism. It tells you generally how well your body is functioning and how good your diet is and gives you a good benchmark which you can retest over time.
Body composition
Price: Free on the NHS or from £40
Frequency: Every six months
Some GP surgeries and pharmacies have machines to test your body composition. You also see them regularly at private clinics, posh gyms and spas. It tells you how much body fat you have and how much muscle. That’s an important thing to track over time.
It’s much better than hopping on the scales because you want to ensure you maintain as much muscle as possible as you age. It will also break down the types of fat you have and you want to keep visceral fat (the one that builds up around the organs) as low as possible.
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2026-05-05T07:40:40Z
