The tool is a 'nomogram' that shows three different measurements, represented as three parallel lines on paper. The line to the left shows systolic blood pressure, the one to the right shows waist-to-hip ratio, the one in the middle shows risk of diabetes. A line is drawn between an individual's scores on the outer lines. The point at which it intersects the central line indicates risk.

Lesley Campbell, Director of St. Vincent's Diabetes Centre, Professor of Medicine at the University of NSW and senior clinical researcher at Garvan, believes the tool will be very useful in developing countries generally.

"In Australia, we have the finances to use many subtle and sophisticated tests, but in developing countries, it's critical that you have screening tests that can be used by workers with only basic training - and that's what this is," she said.

"No-one in any country recommends universal screening because it's too expensive and the yield is too low. So you have to have risk predictors to separate who is worth screening."

"Waist-to-hip ratio is the best predictor of diabetes, mortality and heart disease, no matter where you live. It's the best simple clinical measure that you can ever do. It's been proven since the 1980s in huge population studies; it's been proven in the INTERHEART study as the best indication of cardiovascular risk, better than cholesterol."

"Unfortunately, because it's so straightforward - you just use a tape measure -people don't seem to respect it enough."

"In Australia, the best predictor of diabetes is a strong family history of the disease. In developing countries, most people don't know whether or not there's diabetes in the family."

"The measuring tool that comes out of this study is really simple and cheap - I love it because of that."

Source: Research Australia