{
  "id": 5038272,
  "title": "Free cholesterol tests on the NHS are great – but here’s the five-point health MOT I’d really like to see | Devi Sridhar",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/02/free-cholesterol-tests-on-the-nhs-are-great-but-heres-the-five-point",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-09-02T07:00:25.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Health",
    "slug": "guardian-health",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/02/nhs-free-cholesterol-tests-health-symptom"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The National Health Service (NHS) in England has been focusing more on treating patients in acute hospital settings, rather than investing in primary care. This shift has resulted in the NHS spending heavily on addressing severe and expensive diseases, instead of preventing them from occurring in the first place. Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, highlights that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. She explains that many people may be pre-diabetic, have hypertension, or be at a high risk of a heart attack without exhibiting any symptoms, and therefore remain unaware of their condition.",
  "summary": "You could be walking around symptom-free and not know you’re pre-diabetic, living with hypertension or at a high risk of a heart attack Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Benjamin Franklin’s adage goes. Yet that simple prescription has been hard to follow in the current NHS. As has been frequently…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}