Waist circumference thresholds provide an accurate and widely applicable method for the discrimination of diabetes.

E xcess weight, particularly central obesity, is recognized to be a major determinant of diabetes risk in all populations, with the magnitude of the association reported as being stronger in Asians than whites (1–3). Consequently, indicators of overweight have been incorporated into several guidelines for the early identification of individuals with type 2 diabetes (4). However, the anthropometric cut points for different ethnic groups have been determined in various ways, leading to uncertainty about their applicability to diabetes screening. Here, we clarify current uncertainty regarding ethnic differences in the relationship between overweight and diabetes and whether there is a single measure of overweight that can be determined routinely and applied universally in clinical practice to facilitate earlier detection of diabetes in the general population.