New research suggests that heart rate measures could identify individuals with a higher future risk of diabetes.

Researchers at Penn State University found that faster heart rates were associated with impaired fasting glucose levels. They found that people with fast heat rates had 59 percent increased risk of diabetes relative to those with slow heart rate.

Diabetes is a worldwide epidemic. Roughly 12 percent of Chinese adults have diabetes and 50 percent have pre-diabetes.

"In this study, we measured resting heart rate among about 100,000 Chinese adults and followed them for four years,"  Xiang Gao, senior author of the study, said in a statement. "We found participants with faster heart rates, suggesting lower automatic function, had increased risk of diabetes, pre-diabetes, and conversion from pre-diabetes to diabetes. Each additional 10 beats per minute was associated with 23 percent increased risk of diabetes, similar to the effects of a 3 kilogram per meter square increase in body mass index."

For the four-year study, researchers collected and analyzed data from more than 73,000 Chinese adults. They combined their results with those of seven previously published studies, including nearly 98,000 men and women in total, and found a similar association.

During a four-year follow-up exam, the researchers identified 17,463 prediabetic cases and 4,649 diabetes cases. They examined glucose every two years, beginning in 2006.

The findings are detailed in the International Journal of Epidemiology.