Why are people truly scared of their health risks?

Why would you choose not to know...?

I met a man recently. Mid-fifties, cheerful, clearly enjoying life. I offered him a free cholesterol and heart health check: Ten minutes, a finger-prick of blood and a clear picture of his cardiovascular risk for the next decade. He looked at me and said: "No thanks. I don't want to know."

He's not alone. Psychologists call it the Ostrich Effect - the tendency to avoid information that causes anxiety, burying our heads in the sand to protect ourselves from emotional discomfort and maintain a false sense of security. It feels rational in the moment. What you don't know can't worry you. Except that it can kill you.

Research shows that one of the most common reasons people avoid health information is not wanting to make corresponding behavioural changes - if the news is bad, they'd have to do something about it. Cut the cigarettes. Watch what you eat. The man I met was essentially saying: I'd rather gamble with my future than inconvenience my present.

But here's the thing. He wasn't being asked to do the test for the person he is today. He was being asked to do it for the person he will be in ten years — the one who either catches a problem early, or suffers a heart attack that changes everything far more dramatically than a healthier breakfast ever would.

My grandmother used to say she was "perfectly healthy until she visited a doctor." When she finally did - and learned her real risk - she made small, quiet changes. She lived to 92. She never credited the test. But the numbers tell their own story.

The NHS is under extraordinary pressure, in large part because we treat disease rather than prevent it. Every person who chooses not to know is, eventually, a cost that falls on all of us.

Ten minutes. A tiny finger-prick. The rest of your life.

The only question worth asking is: what are you actually afraid of?