MUMBAI: It would seem prudent to rush for an annual health check-up in a country where every third adult has hypertension and heart attacks occur a decade earlier than they do in Westerners. But an assessment of 25 health packages offered by eight clinics and hospitals in Mumbai showed that most tests don't really have a bearing on the overall health of an individual.Dr Yash Lokhandwala , the main author of the study which appeared in the National Medical Journal of India , said routine health checkups as practised in urban India are counterproductive as far as community health is concerned.“There is no rationale for performing tests such as vitamin D, vitamin B12, thyroid stimulating hormone, electrolytes, pulmonary function tests, among others, as a part of `health check-up' for the general population,“ he said.In fact, a senior doctor said most hospitals offered health checks because they felt it was a way to increase admissions. “They spot elevated levels of some hormones or blood components and ad vise a hospital stay for a better picture to emerge,“ he said.The study looked at health packages, costing between Rs 1,650 (for a `mini' health check-up) to Rs 59,500 (for a `deluxe' package).The study concluded that apart from financial and resource burden, many health checks led to over-diagnosis and over-treatment, psychological distress due to falsepositive test results, harm from invasive follow-up tests, and false reassurance due to false-negative test results.Dr Sanjay Nagral, liver surgeon and editor of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics , said, “Evidence has been around for a long time that health checks don't impact health. Leave aside the fact that they don't contribute to picking up diseases, health checks bring about incidental detection that will lead to further huge battery of investigations.“ Dr Sanjay Nagral said he often saw patients who came to him seeking a gall bladder removal operation. “They say a random health check showed that they had gallstones and they were advised to remove the stones or the gall bladder itself,“ said Dr Nagral. “When I tell them that non-symptomatic stones should be left alone, many are not convinced. People refuse to accept that asymptomatic stones don't need to be treat ed. If a fibroid isn't troubling a woman should it considered a big problem?“ he asked.Dr Srinath Reddy who heads the Public Health Foundation of India , said it has been repeatedly proved that the so-called executive checks are necessarily not beneficial.So what is the best health checkup? It is best to have “opportunistic checks'' while visiting the doctor, said doctors.People should get themselves assessed while visiting their doctor.