A New Method to Assess Asymmetry in Fingerprints Could Be Used as an Early Indicator of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Background: Inexpensive screening tools are needed to identify individuals predisposed to developing diabetes mellitus (DM). Such early identification coupled with an effective intervention could help many people avoid the substantial health costs of this disease. We investigated the hypothesis that fluctuating asymmetry (FA) in fingerprints is an indicator of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).