A large-scale study has found the risk of developing type 2 diabetes can be reduced by 31% by following a lighter Mediterranean-style diet combined with moderate physical activity and professional help with weight loss.
While weight loss injections are making headlines almost every day, the findings from the major Spanish study show that “modest and sustained lifestyle changes could prevent thousands of new (type 2 diabetes) diagnoses every year.”
The PREDIMED-Plus is the largest nutrition trial ever conducted in Europe. Led by the University of Navarra, it involved more than 200 researchers from 22 universities, hospitals, and research institutes and was carried out in more than 100 primary care centres.
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The trial involved 4,746 people aged between 55 and 75 who were overweight or obese, with metabolic syndrome but no history of cardiovascular disease or diabetes.
Over a period of six years, half of the group followed a lighter Mediterranean diet – consuming around 600 fewer kilocalories a day – undertook moderate exercise including brisk walking, and had counselling around weight management.
At the same time, the other half of the group followed a traditional Mediterranean diet with no calorie restrictions, and they didn’t receive any exercise guidance.
The results of the trial show that those in the lighter Mediterranean diet reduced their diabetes risk by 31%. In addition, they lost on average 3.3kg and 3.6cm from their waist, compared to 0.6kg and 0.3cm in the traditional Mediterranean diet group.
One of the trial’s principal investigators, Miguel Ángel Martínez-González, from the University of Navarra and Adjunct Professor of Nutrition at Harvard University, said: “Diabetes is the first solid clinical outcome for which we have shown – using the strongest available evidence – that the Mediterranean diet with calorie reduction, physical activity and weight loss is a highly effective preventive tool.
“Applied at scale in at-risk populations, these modest and sustained lifestyle changes could prevent thousands of new diagnoses every year. We hope soon to show similar evidence for other major public health challenges.”
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More than 530 million people are thought to have type 2 diabetes around the world, the result of sedentary lifestyles, people doing less physical activity, unhealthy diets, growing rates of obesity and aging populations.
First author Miguel Ruiz-Canela, Professor and Chair of Preventive Medicine and Public Health Department at the University of Navarra’s School of Medicine, said: “The Mediterranean diet acts synergistically to improve insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation.
“With PREDIMED-Plus, we demonstrate that combining calorie control and physical activity enhances these benefits.
“It is a tasty, sustainable and culturally accepted approach that offers a practical and effective way to prevent type 2 diabetes – a global disease that is, to a large extent, avoidable.”
Read more in Annals of Internal Medicine
