Both groups had the old test and the microchip-based test performed on their blood.

Type-1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease caused by an inappropriate immune-system attack on healthy tissue. The disease begins when a person's own antibodies attack the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. The auto-antibodies are present in people with type-1 but not those with type-2, which is how tests distinguish between them.

"Even if you do not have diabetes yet, if you have one auto-antibody linked to diabetes in your blood, you are at significant risk; with multiple auto-antibodies, it is more than 90 percent risk," Feldman said in a paper published in the journal Nature Medicine.

The new microchip uses no radioactivity, produces results in minutes and requires minimal training to use. Each chip, expected to cost about $20 (1, 100) to produce, can be used for upward of 15 tests. The microchip also uses a much smaller volume of blood than the older test, researchers said.

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