Caspian Healthcare › Obesity › Free tools › Diabetes risk
Four questions, no blood test. This is the Indian Diabetes Risk Score, built at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation in Chennai and re-validated in 2023 on 98,454 Indians. It was designed for exactly this: finding the people who should go and get tested.
Answer all four. The score updates as you go.
Privacy. Everything you type into the tools in this section is worked out inside your own browser and stays on your own device. Nothing is sent to us, nothing is stored on any server, and nobody at the clinic sees it. Close the page and it is gone.
Most diabetes risk scores were built on European populations, and they use the waist thresholds and age patterns of those populations. Indians develop type 2 diabetes younger, at a lower body weight, and with a different distribution of body fat. A score built elsewhere systematically under-calls risk here.
This one was derived in Chennai and published in 2005, and then re-validated in 2023 across 98,454 people in the ICMR-INDIAB study, which is the largest metabolic survey ever run in India. In that re-validation, more than 96 out of every 100 people found to have undiagnosed diabetes scored in the moderate or high band.
| Score | Band | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Under 30 | Low | Reassuring. Recheck in a year or two, or sooner if your waist grows. |
| 30 to 59 | Moderate | Fasting glucose and HbA1c. This band contains most of the undiagnosed diabetes in India. |
| 60 or more | High | Fasting glucose and HbA1c, and worth doing soon. |
The original 2005 paper defines the bands as under 30, 30 to 50, and 60 or above, which leaves a gap between 51 and 59. Almost every Indian implementation, including this one, treats 30 to 59 as moderate.
Of the four components, two are fixed and two are not. Age and family history are yours whatever you do. Waist and physical activity are worth up to 50 points between them, which is half the score, and both respond to treatment. Physical activity alone is 30 points and costs nothing.
That is not a small point. In the Diabetes Prevention Program, people who missed the weight loss target but met the activity target still did significantly better than those who met neither. Movement is not just a way of losing weight; it does something on its own.
What this is and is not. This is a published screening tool, reproduced with its source named so you or any doctor can check it. It is not a diagnosis and it is not monitored by a person. Nobody at the clinic sees your answers.
Source: Mohan V, Deepa R, Deepa M, Somannavar S, Datta M. A simplified Indian Diabetes Risk Score for screening for undiagnosed diabetic subjects. Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2005;53:759-763. Re-validation: Deepa M and colleagues, ICMR-INDIAB-15, Indian Journal of Medical Research 2023;157(4):239-249, 98,454 participants analysed. Score reproduced with attribution to the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation.
Every number here comes from a named, published clinical trial and is reported as what happened to the people in that trial. None of it is a result from this clinic, a prediction for you, or a promise. Trial populations are selected and individual results vary widely. The trials are named in the reference line above so that you, or any doctor, can look them up.
If you want to talk about what any of it means for your own situation, our contact details and consulting hours are at the bottom of every page in this section, and our fees are published in full on the cost page.