What is the difference between preventive care and physical examination?

Physical examination is a nodal screening that "takes a snapshot". The core is to find health abnormalities that have already occurred.； Preventive care is a continuous intervention of "full-cycle escort". The core is to nip problems before they arise.

I have been working in the Community Public Health Department for almost five years, and I have encountered too many residents who confuse the two. Last month, Uncle Zhang, who lives in Building 3, came for a free annual physical examination. After taking blood, he found that his fasting blood sugar was 6.3mmol/L. He had just reached the critical line of abnormal glucose tolerance and other indicators were fine. This is the role of physical examination - using standardized testing methods to take a clear snapshot of your current physical condition. Which indicators are floating and where are the hidden dangers are clearly listed for you.

But if you think that everything will be fine after getting this "no major abnormality" report, you are wrong. We later visited Uncle Zhang every week to provide dietary guidance. We replaced the white porridge and pickles he ate every day with oatmeal and boiled eggs. After dinner, we dragged him to walk with the community walking team for 40 minutes, and tested his fingertip blood sugar every half month. In less than two months, his fasting blood sugar has stabilized at around 5.7. This whole set of interventions that follow his daily life and can be adjusted at any time is preventive care.

Nowadays, many people think that if I spend thousands of dollars every year on a physical examination and have done all kinds of tumor markers and genetic screening, what preventive care should I do? I met a 32-year-old Internet practitioner last year. All the indicators in the high-end physical examination at the beginning of the year were normal. At the end of the year, he suddenly developed severe hepatitis and was admitted to the ICU after staying up all night for a week. During the middle of the year, he ate takeaways that were heavy in oil and salt every day. It was common to stay up until two or three o'clock. He had neither monitored liver function nor made any lifestyle adjustments. No matter how high-definition the "snapshot" of the physical examination is, it can't control your pretentiousness for the next year. There is another extreme saying that physical examinations are useless, as long as daily health care is enough. This is not correct. Many early nodules and hidden abnormal indicators cannot be discovered by daily feelings. Without the precise guidance of physical examinations, preventive care is easy to be blind.

To put it bluntly, a physical examination is like the annual inspection you give your car every year. It can find out that your brake pads are worn thin and the engine oil needs to be changed. However, if you don’t step on the accelerator hard, do regular maintenance, and don’t add low-quality gasoline when driving, this is preventive care. No one expects that an annual inspection can guarantee that you will drive without problems for a whole year, right? Oh, by the way, there are still many people who say that preventive health care is just a scam by people who sell health care products. That is really a misunderstanding. The free blood pressure monitoring in our community, the introduction of traditional Chinese medicine moxibustion into the community, and guidance on fall prevention for the elderly are all within the scope of preventive health care. To put it bluntly, they help you avoid going to the hospital and avoid getting sick.