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Here’s how you can calculate your diabetes risk at home

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Is it possible to measure your diabetes risk at home?
Is it possible to measure your diabetes risk at home?

This health test is tailor-made for you: you can actually predict your diabetes risk with a tape measure.

A Chinese study found that guys with a waist-to-height ratio of 0.5 or higher were more likely than those with a lower ratio to have either prediabetes or undiagnosed type 2 diabetes.

Study author Dr Xiuying Qi says this method may trump body-mass index and waist-to-hip ratio as a way to gauge visceral fat – the lard that lurks between your organs and disrupts your blood sugar.

Read more: Eat 3 servings of this a week to cut your diabetes risk by 35%

Calculate your ratio

To find your ratio, wrap a tape measure around your waist at the midpoint – between the bottom of your ribs and the top of your hip bones.

Divide that figure (in cm) by your height (also in cm). The resulting number is your ratio.

Read more: This guy shed 50kg of fat and beat diabetes

For example, say your waist circumference is 100cm and your height is 170cm, 100 divided by 170 equals 0.5882.

Rounded off, that gives you a ratio of 0.59, which is just greater than 0.5, meaning you have an elevated risk of prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.

This article was originally published on www.mh.co.za

Image credit: iStock 

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