When people who feel perfectly fine get a full-body MRI scan, doctors often find unexpected things like bumps or changes in their spine, belly, muscles, or organs — and this happens a lot, even when they have no symptoms.

When adults get a full-body MRI scan for research, about 1 in 3 people end up with unexpected findings—most often in their belly, kidneys, or bones—even though they weren’t being checked for those issues.

When healthy people without symptoms get a full-body MRI scan, about 1 in 3 people end up with some unexpected finding on the scan — and almost 6 out of 10 of those surprises don’t clearly mean anything medically important.

Using a full-body MRI scan on people who feel fine can sometimes find hidden health problems they didn’t know they had—and some of those problems might need a doctor’s attention.

When healthy people without symptoms get a full-body MRI scan, doctors often find weird little things that aren’t actually harmful—but those findings can lead to more tests and stress that might not be needed.

When doctors scan healthy people’s whole bodies with MRI and find unexpected issues, most of those findings turn out to be important enough to check further—only about 1 in 10 are harmless.