Is the most expensive health examination in the world worth the money? – Evening Standard

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Do you hobble through life just a little below par, sinking slightly year on year: just a dot more fatigue, a few more headaches, compromised concentration?

A bit fatter, slightly achier? Some sinister corner of your subconscious wondering if theres something ominous in the physiological post; something big heart, cancer, brain. Rather miserable and panicked, but life is hard, right? Youre probably just making a fuss and you should probably count your blessings, right? RIGHT?

Anyway, sigh, if you go to the doctor (if you can even get an appointment), he or she will either give you a referral that is so far in the future youll probably be dead by then anyway or take pity on you and dole out an anti-inflammatory or an SSRI. Even if you have money to chuck at this, medicine has become so specialised that one bit of you can get sliced up/open/out before anyone realises that the problem was coming from another bit of you. No one joins up the dots. So you drink a smoothie, bang a Nurofen and on you go feeling not so hot but not dead either. A rich American CEO would never ignore themselves in this way. They would seek out a path of health optimisation. And that path would lead them to Viavi.

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Viavi is the extraordinary Marylebone hub where lifestyle management meets functional medicine meets traditional medicine meets innovation. Founded by Dr Sabine Donnai, formerly regional clinical director at Bupa and, subsequently, medical director at Nuffield, and physiologist Oliver Patrick, previously head of physiology and nutrition at Nuffield, the whole proposition challenges the received wisdom of personal healthcare. At Viavi there is no such thing as an unexplained symptom. In fact it contests the very idea that the symptoms of a disease should be allowed to manifest before the causes the rumblings in the DNA/blood/tissue/gut jungle have been identified and the whole nonsense has been prevented. So if you have 13k to blow on, well, keeping yourself alive for longer? Feeling better? Optimising the very person that you are? Welcome, reader, to proactive health management.

This is how it began for me: at home spitting and spitting and spitting into small tubes at godforsaken times of the night. Providing all manner of other samples. Wearing a monitor that looked at my nervous system round the clock. Another sleep monitor to check oxygen intake. A mass of blood tests: DNA, hormones, a traditional blood profile, mineral and vitamin status as well as tumour markers. Viavi rakes through every crevice of your metabolism looking for links, signs and actual expressions of disease.

There is a stress test on a stationary bike to push you to fatigue (while wearing a horrid mask and a load of ECG electrodes) in order to establish the state of your cardio health. There is a deep dive into the bodys articulation, a full medical check-up as well as mammograms and trans-vaginal scans for women. I cant imagine the prostate would escape without a good probing. Every section of you is subjected to two or three different tests for a kind of triangulated, interconnected, integrated approach.

To me, the most interesting and unique section of the Viavi proposition is the approach to brain health. This is for two reasons: first because it runs fairly contrary to accepted norms of psychiatric wisdom that tend to get you to answer a questionnaire about mood and then prescribe some pills, and second because this is where my anxiety physiologically lies. Viavi employs a technique called brain mapping, administered by Dr Lesley Parkinson, a consultant clinical psychologist who attaches electrodes all over your head and drills down into the way your brain behaves. Then there is the full set of neuro-transmitter brain chemical tests, all of which deliver a maverick array of results relating to brain injury (if it is there), brain efficiency (hello, CEOs) and explanations as to why you feel the way you feel.

Dr Donnai is a slightly terrifying Belgian who warms up to become a powerful ally. It is Donnai who looks at all the tests, looks at everything that is you, effectively: the leaves, branches, roots and soil of you. Which means she is privy to all the mistakes; all the fat and booze and misery and aches and doubts. All the genetic mire and the red flags and the possibilities and the problems. It is strange how someone can seem frightening and then it dawns that what you are witnessing is just true authority. Oliver Patrick, the deeply charming and empathetic strawberry blonde sensation who was my day-to-day contact, might be the most delightful person in the known universe. He knows everything. And what he doesnt know he will find out for you. Viavi obviously has a stable of the worlds best specialists, should it come to that

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I will be back with another story in a few months time to tell you how all this played out. How the Viavi strategy and health road-mapping worked out for this one writer. But for now I can tell you this: I have been sad and anxious for most of my life; wondering if it was this hard for everyone. I have been on and off medication, generally SSRIs, that generally did little more than make me fatter. I have become increasingly exhausted and yet so panicked that I cant sleep. But, hey, why make a fuss? Im probably just lazy. And even though I feel terrible, my conventional blood profile reads as broadly fine.

But amazingly an explanation is emerging. Every test (remember the triangulation) shows that my adrenals are shot and I can no longer produce sufficient cortisol. Low DHEA hormone levels seal the diagnosis. My nervous system monitor (this is not the technical name) has shown that Im in fight or flight mode for all but 15 minutes of my waking day and for the first hour and a half of sleep. Anyway, I am not reaching a deep sleep state at all which means my body and brain are being given virtually no rest and recovery. In other words, I am on the brink of burnout. The brain scan shows a total lack of balance with soaring delta waves trying to put my weary brain to sleep during the day while alpha waves are trying to compensate by shooting up to the highest possible level. So my brain knows there is a problem, as does Dr Donnai. Disarray. Mixed-up. Hyper-vigilant. Worried. This is not nice for you. It turns out I have more than double the normal level of kynurenic acid. You often find this in people who are schizophrenic, psychotic or very anxiously depressed, she says. Its off the scale, actually. This must be very unpleasant. If I had the money, I think I would have paid nearly 15k just to hear that. I am ecstatic.

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My genes show a tendency towards good cardio health (the stress test sees me operating at 155 per cent of expected efficiency), but my cholesterol is raised, which they will aim to treat herbally. My levels of T4 are fine (I take a pill for this) but the other thyroid hormone, T3, is low and correcting that with bio-identical hormones could be, according to Donnai, like turning a light bulb on. Im lacking B vitamins and magnesium, which is compromising my energy production, and even though Ive been taking a massive dose of vitamin D for months, ever since I read that it can help with inflammation, it is not present in my blood at all. Because my gut will not absorb it. Because my gut has a fungus. Course it does.

This is the opposite of one test fits all. Totally personalised; utterly nuanced. Often the biochemistry of a single blood test will not reflect the symptoms and thats when one can despair. Thats when a person starts to try to accept the idea that theyll be incredibly exhausted and a bit fat forever. But tunnel vision is not permitted at Viavi. The experts there will truffle out the answers.

So what now? Now we make a plan. We will look at gut fungus and toxicity I apparently have a genetic predisposition towards inability to detoxify, which is a nod towards cancer risk. I am immediately advised to get going with green juices (I always thought they were expensively faddish apparently not), non-toxic cleaning products, paraben and sulphate-free beauty products and always (absolutely always) food state supplements to ensure they are free of petrochemicals. Detoxification will be just one of the things that unblock receptors to allow any prescribed treatment, natural or pharmaceutical, to work.

We will look at how I can get better and stay better. Strategically. Viavi holding my hand. The cost is for a years support the team dont just diagnose and wave goodbye. I know you want to put the roof on the house so you dont feel the rain but we have to start with the foundations, says Donnai. This is medical architecture, rebuilding me to last. Nothing has changed yet but I have rarely felt so empowered. So hopeful. And I suddenly understand the investment. Because this feeling is priceless.

Viavi, 13,000 (020 7486 1346; viavi.com)

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Is the most expensive health examination in the world worth the money? - Evening Standard