A new study by researchers at the German Institute for Nutritional Research in Potsdam-Rehbrücke has found that waist circumference gives a better prediction of diabetes risk than does BMI, EurekAlert reports.
Current guidelines recommend that the degree of risk of diabetes from excess weight should be based on the determination of the body mass index (BMI). It is only recommended to measure the waist circumference when the BMI is greater than 25 points. Perhaps this strategy should be reconsidered, as the predictive power of waist circumference for diabetes is particularly high for normal and underweight people (BMI < 25). Persons with a BMI of less than 25 points, but with a large waist circumference, have just as high a risk of developing diabetes as pre-obese (25 < BMI < 30) women and men with low waist circumference.
