Health Screening: Everything You Need to Know — with Dr. Ali Tayyib (UCSI Hospital)

Introduction

Host: Today we're in a different hospital — right now I'm at UCSI, around one and a half hours from Kuala Lumpur. If you're coming here, they can actually pick you up directly from the airport. I'm with Dr. Ali Tayyib bin Azizan, and I'm here because this is where you would start to know all of your problems. If you come here, you need to have the mental capacity to know that you might find out a lot of health issues about yourself. Thank you very much, doctor, for agreeing to appear in this podcast. Health screening is one of the very important steps when we're talking about healthcare, because a lot of people actually identify their health problems through health screening. If you don't mind, it would be amazing if you could introduce yourself so people know more about you.

Dr. Ali: Thank you very much for having me. My background is in public health, and I work here as a health screening doctor. I'm also an occupational health doctor, where I deal with a lot of diseases that relate to occupation. In health screening, we are the gateway for any health check-up — we do all the screening for people who feel well but may have undiagnosed diseases.

Why Get Screened If You Feel Healthy?

Host: I think that's one of the first questions people have about health screening — "Doctor, I don't feel anything, I'm still healthy, why do I need to do health screening?"

Dr. Ali: The most important thing is this: rather than not knowing what is going on inside your body, it is better for you to know. That is number one.

Number two: when we are young, our body is still able to cope with a problem. For example, our heart can still cope with an overworked situation — we don't feel tired, but actually our heart is tired. So how do we know? That is why we do health screening. We advise on certain procedures and investigations to find out specifically whether your current lifestyle is pushing your heart to its limit.

Number three: it is important to detect an early diagnosis. Take cancer, for example. Stage one or stage two cancer has a very good prognosis. Most people, when they are diagnosed with cancer, immediately think it is a death sentence — but what most people don't understand is that if you detect it early, cancer is totally curable and treatable. Our role in screening is that when we have a suspicion of a risk of developing cancer, we refer to a specialist for further investigation.

"If you detect it early, you are totally curable — cancer is curable and treatable."

How Common Is It to Find Something During Screening?

Host: How many out of 10 times do you do health screening and find that the person actually has something wrong?

Dr. Ali: Quite a lot. Most people are unaware that they have such diseases. Some people don't feel chest pain — of course, if you go to Google, it says that to diagnose a heart attack you have to have chest pain, but some people don't feel it. People nowadays are very busy; they don't even notice the chest pain, but they are actually suffering a heart attack. To be honest with you, I can say 90% of people who do screening will definitely have something — and that something is not necessarily lethal if you don't diagnose it early.

"I can say 90% of people who do screening will definitely have something — and if you know early, it is preventable."

Navigating Health Screening Packages

Host: For people like me who have never done a health screening — partly because I'm in denial about having a problem — there are also a lot of packages available, and it's hard to know which one we need. Is there a way to navigate that, based on hereditary diseases, age, or other factors?

Dr. Ali: Here at the UCSI Health Screening Unit, what I normally do is see the patient first and find out what that person is at risk of developing. Most importantly, it is about knowing the person who comes to me. We look at family history, symptoms, and the frequency of illnesses they have suffered, and from there we navigate to the specific diagnostic or screening tests that will tell us whether you are at risk, whether you have the disease, or whether you already have the disease but without symptoms.

Host: What's the most minimum health screening you would suggest people take?

Dr. Ali: Diabetes and cholesterol. Most people have these conditions but have no symptoms. That is the minimum — the very least. But it also depends on age and risk factors. For example, if a family member had a history of heart attack or heart disease, we would advise further investigation such as an ECG to check heart condition. Apart from diabetes, cholesterol, and hypertension (high blood pressure), we would also advise regularly checking kidney function. People with kidney problems often have no symptoms. The most commonly caught diseases are diabetes and hypertension — in other words, metabolic diseases.

What Age Should You Start Screening?

Host: At what age is the youngest that you would recommend people to start checking their health regularly?

Dr. Ali: If you follow the national guidelines or the WHO guidelines, they say 40 years and above — but looking at the trend nowadays, I've seen quite a number of people even at the age of 17 diagnosed with diabetes, and they were not aware of it. They had symptoms but were not sure what they were; when further investigation was done, they were actually diagnosed with diabetes.

I've also seen people at the age of 37 with no symptoms, no chest pain, nothing — but it turned out they had a silent heart attack they were completely unaware of.

"I've seen people at the age of 37 with no symptoms, no chest pain, with nothing — but it turns out they had a silent heart attack."

Screening is very, very important. If you manage to diagnose early, you can treat early and treat accordingly. What most people are also not aware of is that early screening means a reduction in cost. If you screen later, the problem may have already worsened and spread to different parts of the body.

The Most Important Screening Categories

Host: For as long as you've been at UCSI, what are the top screenings you find most important, or that people most commonly take?

Dr. Ali: The top three are:

1. Metabolic diseases (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol)
2. Cardiac illness
3. Orthopaedic diseases such as osteoarthritis

These three are the most common and the most important things to screen for.

Cancer Risk and Genetic Factors

Host: Is it very risky if, say, my parents had cancer? I've heard that everyone actually has cancer genes inside them. Does everyone have to check for cancer, or only those with a family history?

Dr. Ali: Anyone can check. We have a scoring system — we can identify and advise on what kind of investigations and what kind of screening tools to use in order to risk-stratify: to identify what kind of risk you have of developing such diseases. There are different tools and different approaches overall.

What to Expect During a Screening at UCSI

Host: Would you mind walking people through what health screening at UCSI actually looks like? A lot of people think it's a three-hour procedure and a big hassle.

Dr. Ali: The procedure is actually very short, though sometimes because our investigations are very comprehensive, we want to make sure the results are really specific and sensitive for that particular person.

The procedure is very simple — you can even walk in, register, and if you are not sure what investigations you want, you can come and see me first. We will advise what kind of investigations to do: "You should choose this and this," or "You can take this package so we can see the overall picture." Sometimes people don't realise that doing one investigation without the other means the results cannot be properly correlated. It's better to do a combination of two or three — that's why we call it a package. It's actually more about making it easier for you to understand your own body.

After that, for investigations like an echocardiogram or a stress test, we send you to our Heart and Lung Centre for comprehensive testing. For routine blood investigations, we perform a venepuncture and send the sample to the lab. When the results are ready, we call the patient back and discuss in detail what tests were done and what they mean for their body.

Host: Does the result come out the same day?

Dr. Ali: Yes, most of the results come out the same day. Most patients I see come in at around 9:00 in the morning, and by around lunchtime everything is finished.

Common Myths About Blood Tests and Health Screening

Host: A lot of people — particularly from my experience with Indonesians — think that a blood test is almost the same as a full health screening. If the blood test comes back okay, they think they're okay. For example, diabetes is not always included in a regular blood test, right? Are there any common myths or wrong beliefs you see?

Dr. Ali: Yes. A lot of people just prick their finger and believe that because their glucose is good, they're not diabetic and will never have diabetes — that one test is good enough for their whole life. But diabetes is a developing disease. When you are young, you may feel nothing, and your blood investigations may seem normal. It may or may not appear later in life.

Some investigations may also not be sensitive enough, so you need to know which investigation is sensitive and which is specific. That is why my role is important — I advise on what test to do and what test is not really specific enough to determine whether you are truly diabetic or not.

Final Advice: Prevention Is Better Than Cure

Host: If you could give one piece of advice to young people who don't care about their health — I've heard someone say young people love their car more than their body: if the car is breaking a little, they'll take it for repair, but they don't care about their body — what would that advice be?

Dr. Ali: Prevention is better than cure. If you are not sure, look at those who have already developed the disease — then you will know how scary it is going to be, and only then you will realise: "I'd better prevent it now."

"Prevention is better than cure. Look at those who have already developed the disease — then you will know how scary it's going to be."

Host: Thank you very much, Dr. Ali. That's all for today. Even if you have a problem or you don't have a problem, it's better to have a regular health screening — there's a reason people do it. As the doctor mentioned, prevention is better, and it is way cheaper than having to cure something. Dr. Ali is now at UCSI Hospital, around an hour from Kuala Lumpur, and they do offer direct pickup as well. If you have any further questions, leave them in the comments. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment. Thank you for watching.