Diabetes is the fastest growing disease in Australia and a Charles Sturt University (CSU) research project that has run for the past four years aims to develop a cost-effective early warning system to detect diabetes in people living in regional Australia. CSU researchers are using simple blood and heart monitoring tests and eye and foot observations to compare known people with diabetes with "normal" people aged over 40 years to develop this system. "Rural Australians have poorer access to health services that could detect early symptoms of diabetes that affect their eyes, feet and hearts," said research team leader Dr Herbert Jelinek, based on CSU’s Albury-Wodonga Campus. The researchers will make their next round of observations of people in Albury-Wodonga starting next Monday 24 April for two weeks.