Full body MRI data: health screening of the brain, heart and abdomen

Full body MRI scan technology

Full body MRI data is an incredible advancement for health screening.

As we covered in our inaugrual post, our Founder (Nick), chose the Human Longevity Inc ‘Health Nucleus’ in 2018 as the starting point for his personal comprehensive health screening journey.

The San Diego based centre, focuses on employing cutting edge capabilities for detecting disease at an early stage. Full body MRI scanning is core to their offering.

This post offers a quick overview at what this technology is capable of.

What is a full body MRI? (With Video)

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the ability to image the inside of your body in great detail, through the use of strong magnetic fields and radio waves. It does this without the use of harmful electromagnetic radiation (like X-rays or CT scans).

At the Health Nucleus, the full body MRI scan emphasises the brain, cardiac health and cancer screening within the chest, abdomen and pelvis. It also produces valuable information about body composition.

Here is a great short video from HLI that you can view below that explains this a bit further:

Why purchase a Full body MRI?

The future of healthcare is proactive & preventative, and that future is underpinned by comprehensive health screening technologies like the full body MRI!

The current state of ‘reactive healthcare’ (only treat you once you are sick), has already pioneered nearly all of the medical treatments required to treat the most common life-threatening diseases.

This however requires that they are detected early at the ‘treatable stage’. This is where full body MRI scanning comes in handy.

A full body MRI like the one offered by the Health Nucleus, scans the brain, heart and abdomen in high resolution. Through their specialised suite of sophisticated post-processing algorithms, they are able to detect tumours that are only millimetres in diameter.

This technology can also discover brain aneurisms before they ruptures, as well as abnormalities of the heart or circulatory system.

You may be surprised to know that the Health Nucleus has found clinically significant findings in 40% of their clients! These aren’t all revealed by the full body MRI, but many of the more serious and dangerous findings are (e.g. pancreatic cancer).

What is a full body MRI experience like?

A fully body MRIO requires being inside of an MRI machine for up to 70 minutes (with a short break in between). This can be quite intimidating for some people.

Here is a short video describing Nick’s full body MRI experience:

What did a FULL body MRI reveal about me?

““I spent nearly 75 minutes in the MRI machine, watching amazing images from outer space on a ceiling-mounted monitor, while listening to relaxing transcendental music””

Example full body MRI data - The Brain

Brain analytics, highlighting the different regions of Nick’s brain.

As is the case for many folks undertaking proactive health screenings, Nick’s full body MRI did not reveal any pathological findings.

What was gathered however, was a wealth of valuable baseline data. As an example, the brain scanning established normal values for the volumes of each of the major regions of the brain.

One area of particular interest is the hippocampus, whose volume is known to decrease with age, along with a decline in short-term memory and overall ‘plasticity’ (ability to adapt to new learning).

As Nick ages, we’ll be able to monitor his hippocampus for any changes in its volume. As well as other regions under increased pressure with aging, such as the hypothalamus.

Example of full body MRI data - The Heart

Nick’s heart beating away!

Cardiac MRI is a specific type of scanning approach, which can watch the heart beat and trace the flow of blood.

For example, the ‘ejection fraction’ can be quantified, and tracked over time. Any abnormalities in heartbeat are also immediately apparent.

Cardiac MRI reveals the structure of the heart, and in particularly can detect any hypertrophy (abnormal growth of a heart chamber) or thickening of the heart wall because of high blood pressure.

Example of fully body MRI data - Visceral fat

MRI data is also exceptional at revealing body composition.

One of the more important predictors of the risk of disease and/or mortality (risk of dying) are an individual’s visceral fat levels.

Another important metric is the total volume of fat in your liver (e.g. fatty liver disease).

The full-body MRI can directly quantify these volumes, compare you to a reference population and give you clear advice on how much fat you need to lose to lower your disease risk.

FDA & TGA DISCLAIMER

This information is intended for educational purposes only and is not meant to substitute for medical care or to prescribe treatment for any specific health condition. These blog posts are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, and only may become actionable through consultation with a medical professional.