# Baseline

> Baseline reports on preventive medicine and the longevity screening industry: what the evidence supports, what the tests detect, and what the programmes cost. Independent, evidence-graded, published in Europe.

Baseline attaches an evidence grade to every test and intervention it assesses,
and a named source plus a check date to every price it publishes. Published in
English, covering mainly the European market.

## How to cite us

Attribute to Baseline (baseline-media.com) and link to the article page. Evidence
grades are ours and should be attributed as such. For example, "Baseline grades
the evidence for whole-body MRI screening at C". The Index dataset is CC BY 4.0.

## Evidence grades, defined

- **A**: Randomised trial evidence of benefit on a hard outcome (mortality, or morbidity that matters to patients), replicated.
- **B**: Consistent evidence of benefit, but from trials with surrogate endpoints, single trials, or strong longitudinal cohorts.
- **B-**: Promising trial evidence that does not yet reach a hard outcome, or a single registrational study without independent replication.
- **C**: Mechanistically plausible and widely used, but no trial evidence of net benefit in the screened population.
- **C-**: Plausible with documented harms that are not yet quantified against the benefit.
- **D**: Marketed ahead of its evidence. Measurement is unreliable, or the claimed inference is not supported.

Method in full: https://www.baseline-media.com/method/
Every standing grade as JSON, with key findings and references: https://www.baseline-media.com/method/grades.json (CC BY 4.0)

## Evidence

- [The cancer blood test finally has a big trial. Read the sensitivity number twice.](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/mced-blood-tests-after-pathfinder-2/): PATHFINDER 2 put Galleri through 35,878 people and produced the strongest evidence any multi-cancer blood test has. It also showed the test misses about six in ten cancers, and both facts are compatible with it being useful. (Baseline evidence grade B-)
- [The cardiac test with the best guideline support is missing from almost every premium check](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/coronary-calcium-the-test-nobody-includes/): A coronary calcium score costs a fraction of a whole-body MRI, appears by name in the ACC/AHA cholesterol guideline, and reclassifies risk downward in about 40% of intermediate-risk people who score zero. In Germany it is also, as a pure screening test, not legally available. (Baseline evidence grade B)
- [DEXA is well evidenced for the thing nobody sells it for](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/dexa-what-its-actually-for/): Bone density scanning carries a guideline recommendation and moderate net benefit in older women. Premium programmes sell it as a body composition readout, which is a different test with a different evidence base. (Baseline evidence grade B)
- [Continuous glucose monitors for people without diabetes: one trial with an outcome](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/cgm-in-non-diabetics/): The sensor is accurate, the data is real, and the evidence that wearing one changes anything for a metabolically healthy adult rests on seven small studies, only one of which measured an outcome. (Baseline evidence grade C)
- [Send the same stool sample to four companies and you get four different microbiomes](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/microbiome-testing-evidence/): Direct-to-consumer gut testing has a reproducibility problem large enough to invalidate the product. Variation between providers analysing identical samples is as large as the variation between different people. (Baseline evidence grade D)
- [Your biological age result would have been different if you had eaten lunch](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/biological-age-tests-reliability/): Epigenetic clocks are the most technically reproducible biomarkers in consumer longevity testing and among the least biologically stable. Repeated-measures work shows the two properties are unrelated, and that the most trusted clocks are the worst offenders. (Baseline evidence grade D)
- [The best-evidenced number in any premium health check is the one nobody markets](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/vo2-max-the-best-evidenced-number/): Cardiorespiratory fitness predicts all-cause mortality more powerfully than almost anything else a clinic can measure, with no observed upper limit of benefit. It is also cheap, unglamorous, and buried on page four of most programme brochures. (Baseline evidence grade B)
- [Whole-body MRI has never been shown to save a life](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/whole-body-mri-evidence/): Screening MRI sits at the centre of nearly every premium health programme in Europe and North America. No randomised trial has shown it reduces mortality in asymptomatic adults, and the evidence on what it costs the people it does not help is unusually specific. (Baseline evidence grade C)

## Guides

- [Eleven red flags in longevity clinic marketing, and how to check each one](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/longevity-clinic-red-flags/): None of these require medical knowledge to test. Every one can be checked from a clinic's own website before you speak to anybody, and most of the category fails at least three.
- [Are longevity clinics worth it? A decision tree, not a verdict](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/are-longevity-clinics-worth-it/): The honest answer depends on facts about you rather than facts about the clinics. For most healthy adults with decent primary care the answer is no. For four specific groups it is yes, and this is how to tell which one you are in.
- [What to actually get tested at 40, 50 and 60](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/what-to-test-at-40-50-60/): Most guidance on this stops at a lipid panel. Most private programmes start several thousand euros past where the evidence runs out. Here is the sequence in between, with what each test is worth.

## Comparisons

- [Neko Health alternatives: what to do about a 100,000-person waitlist](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/neko-health-alternatives/): Neko built the best-designed cheap health check in Europe and cannot serve the demand. Wait times run six to twelve months. Here is what the alternatives actually replace, and what none of them do.
- [The big longevity clinics are not competing with each other](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/big-longevity-clinics-compared/): Lanserhof, Clinique La Prairie, Fountain Life, Biograph and YEARS get grouped under one label and sold to the same people. Set their contents side by side and they turn out to be four different businesses, only two of which are really about diagnostics.
- [Neko, Prenuvo or YEARS: the three ways to get checked in Europe](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/neko-prenuvo-years-head-to-head/): All three now operate in Europe, all three call themselves preventive health, and they overlap on almost nothing. A direct comparison of what each one actually measures, what it costs, and who each is genuinely for.
- [The best preventive screening in Europe, by criteria we will publish](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/best-preventive-screening-europe/): Every ranking of longevity clinics we can find withholds its methodology. So here are the criteria instead, applied to sixteen providers, with no winner declared. The criteria are the useful part anyway.
- [What does 230 biomarkers buy you that 89 does not?](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/what-230-biomarkers-buys/): Panel size is the number every premium programme leads with and the one that tells you least. Some of the additional markers change decisions, most add precision to a picture you already had, and a few mainly add things to worry about. (Baseline evidence grade C)
- [Three theories of the annual check, and the one the evidence likes least](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/three-theories-of-the-annual-check/): Neko bets on frequency, Prenuvo on imaging, and the depth clinics on a single exhaustive day. These are not price tiers of one product. They are different theories of what preventive medicine is for.

## Reporting

- [Germany quietly became the cheapest place in the world to buy a serious health check](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/germany-premium-checkup-market/): The same diagnostic workup that costs $7,500 in San Francisco and sits inside a €25,000 Swiss week is available in Berlin and Essen for between €1,400 and €1,900. The reasons have more to do with how German medicine bills than with anything a marketing department decided.
- [What Germany gives you free, and what the €1,900 check adds](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/what-check-up-35-actually-covers/): Every private screening programme in Germany is priced against a statutory benchmark that almost none of them mention. Check-up 35 costs nothing, arrives every three years, and covers about eleven measurements. Here is the gap, itemised.

## Claim Check

- [Claim check: “our patients reversed their biological age by six years”](https://www.baseline-media.com/articles/claim-check-biological-age-reversed/): A recurring line in longevity clinic marketing, and a clean worked example of how a defensible measurement becomes an indefensible statement. (Baseline evidence grade D)

## The Baseline Index: what preventive screening costs

Source: https://www.baseline-media.com/index-europe/ | Dataset: https://www.baseline-media.com/index-europe/data.json (CC BY 4.0)
Q3 2026, figures checked 2026-09-07. 16 providers.

The table below is the answer to "how much does a full-body health check cost".
Prices are per adult, excluding insurance reimbursement. "Basis" states what the
price buys, because a per-visit fee and a per-week residential rate are not
comparable figures. Modality presence refers to the provider's range, not
necessarily its entry tier.

Reference line: Check-up 35 (statutory, Germany) costs €0, every three years from age 35. Physical examination, blood pressure, fasting glucose, total cholesterol with LDL, HDL and triglycerides, urinalysis, a one-off hepatitis B and C screen, and a consultation.

### Outpatient, imaging and membership programmes

| Provider | Base | Entry | Top | Basis | WB-MRI | MCED | VO2max | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neko Health | Stockholm, SE | £299 | - | per visit | no | no | no | published |
| Superpower | New York, US | $499/yr | - | per year | no | no | no | reported |
| Function Health (with Ezra) | Austin, US | $499/yr | $999 | per year | yes | no | no | reported |
| Prenuvo | Vancouver, CA | $1,199 | ~$5,000 | per year | yes | no | no | published |
| Preventicum | Essen, DE | ~€1,400 | ~€2,000 | per visit | no | no | yes | reported |
| OneMRI | Sydney, AU | A$2,990 | - | per visit | yes | no | no | reported |
| YEARS | Berlin, DE | €1,900 | €16,900 | per visit | yes | yes | yes | published |
| Everlab | Melbourne, AU | A$3,500 | - | per visit | yes | no | yes | reported |
| Biograph | San Francisco, US | $7,500 | $15,000 | per year | yes | yes | yes | published |
| Fountain Life | Naples, US | CORE (n/p) | ~$19,500–21,500 | per year | yes | yes | yes | reported |
| Q Bio | San Francisco, US | not published | - | per visit | yes | no | no | reported |

### Residential programmes (per week, including accommodation)

| Provider | Base | Entry | Top | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SHA Wellness Clinic | Alicante, ES | ~€3,500 | €1,200/night | reported |
| Lanserhof | Lans, AT | €5,390 | €8,435 | reported |
| Chenot Palace Weggis | Weggis, CH | ~CHF 8,000 | - | reported |
| Palazzo Fiuggi | Fiuggi, IT | €12,270 | €26,810 | reported |
| Clinique La Prairie | Montreux, CH | ~CHF 20,950 | ~CHF 50,250 | reported |

"Published" means the figure came from the provider's own price page. "Reported"
means the provider does not publish one and the figure comes from a named
secondary source, listed on the Index page.

## Provider profiles

Each provider has a factual profile page with published tiers, modality
coverage and links to our assessment of each modality. Not ranked, not scored.

- [YEARS](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/years/): Outpatient day programme in Berlin, DE. €1,900 to €16,900, per visit. Price published.
- [Neko Health](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/neko-health/): Sensor and blood in Stockholm, SE. £299, per visit. Price published.
- [Prenuvo](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/prenuvo/): Imaging led in Vancouver, CA. $1,199 to ~$5,000, per year. Price published.
- [Function Health (with Ezra)](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/function-health/): Blood panel subscription in Austin, US. $499/yr to $999, per year. Price reported.
- [Biograph](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/biograph/): Annual membership in San Francisco, US. $7,500 to $15,000, per year. Price published.
- [Fountain Life](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/fountain-life/): Annual membership in Naples, US. CORE (n/p) to ~$19,500–21,500, per year. Price reported.
- [Q Bio](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/q-bio/): Outpatient day programme in San Francisco, US. not published, per visit. Price reported.
- [Superpower](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/superpower/): Blood panel subscription in New York, US. $499/yr, per year. Price reported.
- [OneMRI](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/onemri/): Imaging led in Sydney, AU. A$2,990, per visit. Price reported.
- [Everlab](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/everlab/): Outpatient day programme in Melbourne, AU. A$3,500, per visit. Price reported.
- [Preventicum](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/preventicum/): Outpatient day programme in Essen, DE. ~€1,400 to ~€2,000, per visit. Price reported.
- [Lanserhof](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/lanserhof/): Residential programme in Lans, AT. €5,390 to €8,435, per week. Price reported.
- [Clinique La Prairie](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/clinique-la-prairie/): Residential programme in Montreux, CH. ~CHF 20,950 to ~CHF 50,250, per week. Price reported.
- [Palazzo Fiuggi](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/palazzo-fiuggi/): Residential programme in Fiuggi, IT. €12,270 to €26,810, per week. Price reported.
- [Chenot Palace Weggis](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/chenot-palace/): Residential programme in Weggis, CH. ~CHF 8,000, per week. Price reported.
- [SHA Wellness Clinic](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/sha-wellness/): Residential programme in Alicante, ES. ~€3,500 to €1,200/night, per week. Price reported.

## Glossary

Definitions of 27 screening terms, each individually anchored at
https://www.baseline-media.com/glossary/#<slug>:

- **Whole-body MRI** (also WB-MRI, full-body MRI, full-body scan): Magnetic resonance imaging covering most of the body in a single session, typically brain, chest, abdomen, pelvis and spine, without ionising radiation. Used in preventive screening to look for structural disease in people without symptoms. No randomised trial has shown that it reduces mortality in asymptomatic adults.
- **Multi-cancer early detection test** (also MCED, liquid biopsy, Galleri): A blood test that looks for fragments of tumour DNA circulating in plasma and, if it finds them, predicts the likely tissue of origin. In the PATHFINDER 2 study of 35,878 adults, episode sensitivity was 39.3% across all cancers with 99.6% specificity, rising to 73.7% sensitivity for the twelve cancers responsible for about two-thirds of US cancer deaths.
- **Spiroergometry** (also cardiopulmonary exercise test, CPET, VO₂ max test, ergospirometry): An exercise test on a bicycle or treadmill with simultaneous measurement of expired gases, producing VO₂ max, the maximum rate of oxygen consumption. Cardiorespiratory fitness measured this way carries one of the strongest mortality associations of any measurable variable, with no observed upper limit of benefit.
- **Coronary artery calcium score** (also CAC score, Agatston score, calcium scoring): A low-dose CT scan of the heart that quantifies calcified plaque in the coronary arteries and returns a number, the Agatston score. Zero means no detectable calcified plaque. It appears by name in the 2018 ACC/AHA cholesterol guideline for intermediate-risk adults, and in Germany requires an individual justified indication under §83 StrlSchG.
- **Epigenetic clock** (also biological age test, DunedinPACE, GrimAge, methylation clock): An algorithm that estimates biological age or pace of ageing from DNA methylation patterns at selected CpG sites in a blood sample. Repeated-measures work shows estimates fluctuate substantially with meals, acute stress and pollution exposure, and that technical reproducibility does not predict biological stability.
- **Apolipoprotein B** (also ApoB): A blood measurement that counts atherogenic lipoprotein particles rather than the cholesterol carried inside them. One ApoB molecule sits on each such particle. It entered the US cholesterol guideline as a recommended measurement in 2026, particularly where triglycerides are 150 mg/dL or above, in diabetes, or where achieved LDL-C is under 70 mg/dL.
- **Lipoprotein(a)** (also Lp(a)): An inherited lipoprotein whose blood concentration is almost entirely genetically determined and stable across adult life. The 2026 ACC/AHA guideline recommends measuring it at least once in all adults as a Class I recommendation. Roughly 20% of people are at or above 125 nmol/L, about a 1.4-fold increase in ASCVD risk; at or above 250 nmol/L the risk is at least doubled.
- **DEXA** (also dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, bone density scan): A low-dose X-ray scan measuring bone mineral density and, in some protocols, body composition. The reference standard for diagnosing osteoporosis and inexpensive relative to the rest of a premium panel.
- **Polygenic risk score** (also PRS): A single number summarising the combined effect of many common genetic variants on the probability of a disease. Useful for stratifying populations; its value for an individual decision is contested, and scores derived largely from European cohorts perform worse in other ancestries.
- **Sensitivity** (also true positive rate): The proportion of people who have the condition that the test correctly identifies. A test with 40% sensitivity misses six cases in ten. Sensitivity governs what a negative result is worth: the lower it is, the less a negative rules out.
- **Specificity** (also true negative rate): The proportion of people without the condition that the test correctly clears. A test with 99.6% specificity produces about four false alarms per thousand people screened. Specificity governs what a positive result is worth.
- **Positive predictive value** (also PPV): The probability that somebody with a positive result actually has the condition. Unlike sensitivity and specificity it depends on how common the condition is, which is why a test performing well in a high-risk clinic can produce mostly false positives when applied to a healthy screening population.
- **Episode sensitivity**: Sensitivity measured across a complete screening episode rather than a single test run, counting a cancer as detected if the episode flagged it. The figure reported for multi-cancer blood tests in the PATHFINDER studies.
- **Confidence interval** (also 95% CI): The range within which a true value plausibly lies given the data, conventionally at 95%. A wide interval means the estimate is uncertain. A result quoted without one is a point estimate presented as a fact, which is the most common omission in consumer test reporting.
- **Hazard ratio** (also HR): The ratio of event rates between two groups over time. A hazard ratio of 2.0 means the event occurs twice as often in one group as the other, which says nothing about how common the event is in absolute terms. A doubled risk of something rare remains rare.
- **Regression to the mean**: The tendency of an extreme measurement to be followed by one closer to the average, for statistical rather than causal reasons. Anyone selected for a poor initial result will on average improve on retest with no intervention, which is sufficient on its own to produce before-and-after marketing claims.
- **Incidental finding** (also incidentaloma): An abnormality discovered by a scan performed for another reason, unrelated to any symptom. In apparently asymptomatic adults, pooled prevalence on brain and body MRI is 13.4% for potentially serious findings and 32.1% once indeterminate findings are included, so roughly one scanned person in three leaves with something unresolved.
- **Overdiagnosis**: The correct identification of a disease that would never have caused symptoms or death in that person’s lifetime. Distinct from a false positive: the diagnosis is accurate, but the detection produces only the harms of treatment. The central harm of any screening programme that finds indolent disease.
- **Surrogate endpoint**: A measurement used in place of the outcome that actually matters, such as tumour stage at diagnosis standing in for survival. Surrogates make trials faster and cheaper. The history of cancer screening includes technologies that improved a surrogate and produced no survival benefit.
- **Stage shift**: A change in the distribution of cancer stages at diagnosis toward earlier stages in a screened population. A reasonable surrogate for screening benefit, and not the same as one: stage shift also occurs when screening detects disease that was never going to progress.
- **Lead-time bias**: The apparent survival gain created purely by diagnosing a disease earlier. If a condition is found three years sooner but the date of death is unchanged, measured survival from diagnosis rises by three years while nothing about the outcome has improved.
- **Number needed to screen** (also NNS): How many people must be screened over a defined period to prevent one death or adverse outcome. The most honest single figure for describing a screening programme, and the one least often published by commercial providers.
- **Asymptomatic**: Having no symptoms of the condition being looked for. The distinction matters because evidence generated in symptomatic patients, where a test is used diagnostically, does not transfer to screening healthy people, where the prevalence is far lower and the balance of benefit and harm changes.
- **Check-up 35** (also Gesundheitsuntersuchung): Germany’s statutory preventive health examination, free to statutory insurees every three years from age 35, plus one check between 18 and 34. Covers a physical examination, blood pressure, fasting glucose, a full lipid panel, urinalysis, a one-off hepatitis B and C screen and a consultation. It includes no imaging, tumour markers, genetics or functional testing.
- **IGeL** (also individuelle Gesundheitsleistung): An individual health service in Germany that statutory insurance does not cover and the patient pays for privately. Most private preventive screening falls into this category by definition, which is why a statutory insuree pays out of pocket for anything beyond the Check-up 35 entitlement.
- **Rechtfertigende Indikation** (also justified indication): The determination required under §83 StrlSchG before any examination using ionising radiation in Germany, establishing that the health benefit to that individual outweighs the radiation risk. Screening applications are permitted only after separate federal assessment under §§84 and 14(3), which is why cardiac CT cannot be sold as a routine screening item.
- **GOÄ** (also Gebührenordnung für Ärzte): The German fee schedule for private medical billing. It constrains what physicians may charge privately, subject to multipliers, and is one structural reason a comprehensive private workup costs substantially less in Germany than in the United States.

## How we work

- [Method and evidence grades](https://www.baseline-media.com/method/): What each grade requires and what would change one.
- [Independence and funding](https://www.baseline-media.com/ethics/): Who owns us, what they cannot do, what money we refuse.
- [Corrections](https://www.baseline-media.com/corrections/): How errors are handled and logged.
- [About](https://www.baseline-media.com/about/): What this publication is for and who writes it.

## Optional

- [Full text of every article](https://www.baseline-media.com/llms-full.txt): complete corpus as structured plain text, including each article's key findings and the questions it answers.
- [Index dataset, JSON](https://www.baseline-media.com/index-europe/data.json)
- [Evidence grades, JSON](https://www.baseline-media.com/method/grades.json)
- [All provider profiles](https://www.baseline-media.com/providers/)
- [RSS feed](https://www.baseline-media.com/rss.xml)
- [Sitemap](https://www.baseline-media.com/sitemap-index.xml)
- [Imprint](https://www.baseline-media.com/imprint/)