Mediterranean food can help in fight against diabetes

Eating a Mediterranean diet that contains a lot of olive oil and nuts can help lower the incidence of type 2 diabetes by 52 per cent in those people who are at a high risk of cardiovascular disease, it has been revealed.
A Spanish study, the Prevencion con Dieta Mediterranea (PREDIMED), has examined 418 participants with an average age of 67.3 years who had one of three different dietary interventions, two that involved traditional Mediterranean diets (MedDiets) that were supplemented with virgin olive oil or mixed nuts and another that involved a low-fat control diet.
After about a four-year period, the cumulative incidence of type 2 diabetes was found to be 11 per cent in the MedDiet plus nuts group and 10.1 per cent in the MedDiet plus virgin olive oil group. However, the incidence of diabetes was significantly greater in the control group, at 17.9 per cent.
These findings meant that there was a 51 per cent reduction in the incidence of diabetes in the MedDiet for those who took the virgin olive oil supplements and a 52 per cent reduction in those on the MedDiet with nuts, while the pooled findings showed a combined decrease of 52 per cent.