It’s hard to miss all the buzz surrounding commercial body scans right now. Busy Phillips discovered she had a rare brain tumor after getting one, while Emmy Awards executive producer Dionne Harmon shared that a scan found her stage 3 lung cancer. Kim Kardashian also revealed that a full body scan she underwent found a small brain aneurysm.
Plenty of other celebrities like Kate Hudson and Cindy Crawford have shared on social media that they’ve gotten full body scans—and received some backlash from fans that the high cost of these are out of reach for most Americans. Now, there's a new company in the U.S. offering body scans, and at a much lower price than the competition. It’s called Neko Health and it’s already popular in the U.K. and Sweden.
Neko Health’s “signature scan” costs $499, which is about half the cost of other big-name companies in the U.S. While more affordable, there are some key differences between the Neko Health scan and some of the other, more costly options. Doctors say they’re still wary of suggesting people .
Meet the experts: Kimberly Schelling, MD, associate chief of general internal medicine at Tufts Medical Center; Richard Reitherman, MD, PhD, radiologist and medical director of breast imaging at MemorialCare Breast Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA; Anthony Febles, MD, interventional radiologist at Northwell Health Neko Health’s signature scan uses a few metrics to try to look at your health. The process, which takes about an hour, involves a blood test, skin check, and analysis for a range of biomarkers. Neko Health uses a mix of 2D cameras, thermal cameras, and depth sensors combined with other biomarker data to give a sense of your health.
Most other companies use MRI technology; Neko Health does not. (See above for what it does use.) Prenuvo is one of the most well-known companies, with the most celebrity endorsements. Prenuvo has a wide range of options to look at your health, including a head to thigh scan and blood test, and the pricier whole body scan that includes a brain scan and heart scan. Other companies on the market include Function/Ezra MRI, which also offers a range of body scans, and SimonMed, offering several MRI scans and imaging options.
Neko Health is clear on its website that it doesn’t check for every possible thing that could be wrong with your health. Our focus is on checking for health risks where the data can provide meaningful insights and where there are actionable steps that can be taken to help prevent disease.” Another area of Neko Health’s FAQ section also states this: “It assesses health risks; It does not provide MRI or CT images of your internal organs.” Neko Health “appears to be an exciting new technology to promote health awareness and motivate lifestyle changes,” says Richard Reitherman, MD, PhD, radiologist and medical director of breast imaging at MemorialCare Breast Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA. But he stresses that “full body MRI scans are a different matter altogether.” (Neko Health does not look for things like brain tumors or cancers inside the abdomen or lungs, for example.) Still, none of these scans are endorsed by major medical associations, with the American Medical Association (AMA) noting that more research on them is needed.
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