Adult Health Checks: What Should You Actually Be Checking as You Get Older?
By Dr Daniel Gordon • 12, Sept 2026
A lot of people come to see me for a health check and start with the same question: “What should I actually be checking at my age?”
It’s a good question. If you feel perfectly well, it’s easy to assume there’s nothing to check. But some of the health problems we want to catch early, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes, can develop quietly without making you feel unwell.
At the other extreme, I also see people who want every blood test, scan and marker available, just in case. More testing doesn't necessarily mean better preventive care.
For me, a useful health check is about understanding your risk. Your age, family history, lifestyle, previous results and any symptoms all help me decide what is worth checking and, just as importantly, what isn't.
The checks I think are worth knowing about
There isn't one perfect health check that applies to every adult. But there are some basic areas I regularly look at because they tell us a great deal about future health risk.
When did you last check your blood pressure?
Blood pressure is one of the simplest things we can measure, but it's also one of the most useful.
High blood pressure often causes no symptoms. You can feel completely well while it gradually increases your risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney problems.
One high reading doesn't necessarily mean you have hypertension. Blood pressure changes throughout the day and can rise when you're anxious, rushing or sitting in a doctor's surgery.
If I find a raised reading in clinic, I may ask you to take measurements at home or arrange 24-hour monitoring. What I'm interested in is whether your blood pressure is consistently high.
Do you know your cholesterol?
Most people with high cholesterol have no idea they have it until they have a blood test.
But I don't look at cholesterol as an isolated number. I want to know your age, blood pressure, whether you smoke, whether you have diabetes and whether there is a history of early heart disease in your family.
All of those pieces help us build a much more useful picture of your cardiovascular risk.
The aim isn't simply to make one number on a blood test lower. It's to understand your overall risk of heart attack and stroke and decide whether there's anything worth doing about it.
Should you be tested for diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes can also develop gradually, sometimes long before obvious symptoms appear.
Whether I'd recommend testing depends on the person in front of me. Age, weight, family history, ethnicity, previous blood sugar results and other health conditions can all influence risk.
An HbA1c blood test can tell us about your average blood glucose over the previous few months and is one of the tests we commonly use when assessing diabetes risk.
Again, the important thing isn't simply doing the test. It's knowing why we're doing it and what we'll do with the result.
What about your weight and waist measurement?
Weight can tell us something about health risk, but the number on the scales is only one part of the picture.
I might also consider your waist measurement, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, activity levels and family history.
Someone can be a healthy weight and still have high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Equally, focusing entirely on someone's BMI can mean missing a much more useful conversation about their overall health.
I'd much rather look at the whole picture.
Which blood tests do you actually need?
This is probably one of the most common conversations I have around health checks.
There isn't a standard list of dozens of blood tests that every healthy adult needs every year. I choose tests because they answer a useful question.
Depending on your age, symptoms, medical history and risk factors, that might include:
Cholesterol
Blood glucose or HbA1c
Kidney function
Liver function
A full blood count
Other tests, including thyroid function, iron studies or particular vitamin levels, may be useful when your symptoms or history give us a reason to look.
It's tempting to think that testing for everything gives you more reassurance. Sometimes it does the opposite. The more things we test without a clear reason, the more likely we are to find a slightly unusual result that may mean very little but leads to anxiety, repeat tests and further investigation.
A good health check should be thorough, but it should also be thoughtful.
Don't forget the health checks already available to you
Preventive health isn't just about having blood taken.
Depending on your age and sex, you may be eligible for established screening programmes including cervical, breast and bowel cancer screening.
These programmes are there for a reason, so don't ignore an invitation because you feel well. Screening is specifically designed to look for disease or early changes in people who may have no symptoms at all.
It's also worth checking your vaccination history, particularly if your records are incomplete, you have certain medical conditions, travel regularly or are reaching an age when additional vaccinations are recommended.
Your family history can tell me a lot
One of the questions I'll often ask during a health assessment is what has happened to your parents, siblings and other close relatives.
I'm particularly interested in things such as:
Heart attacks or strokes at a younger age
Very high or inherited cholesterol
Type 2 diabetes
Certain cancers occurring repeatedly or unusually young in the family
The details are useful. Telling me that “heart problems run in the family” is a start, but knowing who was affected, what happened and approximately how old they were can change how I assess your own risk.
In some cases, family history is the reason I might recommend looking at something earlier than I otherwise would.
A health check should go beyond blood tests
Some of the most important questions I ask during a health check don't require a laboratory at all.
How are you sleeping? How much alcohol are you drinking? Are you exercising? Do you smoke? How stressed are you? How is your mood? Are you constantly exhausted?
These things matter.
They can uncover problems that have gradually become someone's “normal”, from persistent anxiety and low mood to excessive alcohol use or possible sleep apnoea.
If we only look at a page of normal blood results and ignore how you're actually living and feeling, we've missed a large part of the point of the health check.
How often should you have a health check?
There's no single answer.
Someone with raised blood pressure, high cholesterol or other risk factors may need regular monitoring. Someone younger with reassuring results, no significant family history and a low-risk profile may not need the same tests repeated every year.
What I want at the end of a health check is a clear plan.
What's reassuring? What could be improved? Is there anything we need to investigate? And when, if at all, should we check it again?
That's much more useful than simply repeating the same panel of tests every 6 months.
The key takeaway
A good health check isn't about doing the greatest possible number of tests. It's about finding the things that matter for you.
Know your blood pressure. Understand your cholesterol and cardiovascular risk. Check for diabetes when appropriate. Keep up with recommended screening and vaccinations. And don't underestimate how useful your family history, sleep, alcohol intake, activity levels and mental health can be in building the bigger picture.
When I carry out a health check, I'm not trying to find something wrong with you. I'm trying to identify risks early enough that we still have the opportunity to do something useful about them.
Disclaimer
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