In a cross-sectional study of 5000 rural subjects from Bangladesh aged ≥20 years, height, weight, waist, hips, blood pressure and demograhic information was collected and fasting capillary blood glucose levels were obtained from 4757 individuals. Low prevalence of type 2 diabetes and relatively high impaired fasting glucose were observed. Whereas there was no relationship between type 2 diabetes and body mass index (BMI) in men, an overall relationship (P=0.04) was noted in women, with age, sex and waist/hip ratio as important risk factors for the occurrence of type 2 diabetes. (editor’s note : such gender differences were also reported from other tropical and subtropical regions of the world). These data call for revised guidelines for anthropometric measures in the South Asian population as risk factors for type 2 diabetes appear to differ from their known relations with BMI.