By David Liu, Ph.D. and editing by Aimee Keenan-Green

Eating a Mediterranean diet may help prevent diabetes.

Salas-Salvadó J.  of Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Reus, Spain,  found men and women aged 55 to 80 years who had eaten a Mediterranean diet for four years were 50 percent less likely to develop diabetes.

For the study, 418 people in three groups were told to use either a low fat diet as controls, or a Mediterranean diet supplemented with either virgin olive oil (1 liter per week) or nuts (30 grams a day). The diets were used ad libitum.

After the four-year dietary intervention, diabetes was diagnosed in 10.1 percent diet with nuts, 11.0 percent diet with olive oil, and 17.9 percent in the control diet group.

Compared with the controls, those on a Mediterranean diet with virgin olive oil or nuts were about 50 percent less likely to develop diabetes, compared with those controls who followed just the low fat diet.

The researchers found an inverse association between use of a Mediterranean diet and diabetes risk,  that is, those who more closely adhered to a Mediterranean diet were at lower risk for diabetes.

The association existed without any significant modifications in body weight or physical activity, the researchers reported in the January 2011 issue of Diabetes Care.