Wrist size could provide early warning about diabetes

Scientists in Italy have identified a link between wrist size and a major risk factor for diabetes and heart disease in overweight children . They found that levels of insulin resistance were related to the size of the wrist bone, not the amount of fatty tissue around it. The scientists hope that measuring wrist size may offer an early warning sign for diabetes .
The study, published in the journal Circulatio, examined 477 overweight and obese children with an average age of 10 years, and revealed that the circumference of the wrist could explain 12 per cent of the differences of blood insulin and levels of insulin resistance between children .
The team used the nuclear magnetic resonance imaging technique to show that the bigger the size of wrist, the more likely it was that the chid would exhibit signs of an underlying problem, and that the amount of bone in the wrist accounted for 17 per cent of the variation present.
Raffaella Buzzetti, lead researcher on the project, commented “Wrist circumference is easily measured and if our work is confirmed by future studies, wrist circumference could someday be used to predict insulin resistance and cardiovascular (heart and artery) disease risk.”