Aims/hypothesis Both visceral and truncal fat have been associated with metabolic disturbances. We aimed to investigate the associations of several novel metabolic indices, combining anthropometric and lipid measures, and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measurements of body fat, with incident type 2 diabetes among women and men from the large population-based Rotterdam Study. Methods Cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate associations of visceral adiposity index (VAI), lipid accumulation product (LAP), the product of triacylglycerol and glucose (TyG), their formula components and DXA measures with incident type 2 diabetes. Associations were adjusted for traditional diabetes risk factors. Results Among 5576 women and 3988 men free of diabetes, 511 women and 388 men developed type 2 diabetes during a median follow-up of 6.5 years. In adjusted models, the three metabolic indices VAI (per 1 SD naturally log-transformed HR; 95%