Consuming a Mediterranean diet may reduce a person's risk of developing diabetes, particularly if they are at high risk for heart disease, a new study suggests.

The Mediterranean diet involves a high intake of olive oil, fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, fish and starchy foods such as red potatoes and pasta. Dairy products, poultry and wine are consumed in low to moderate amounts, while red meat is rarely eaten.

Greek researchers anaylsyed 19 studies involving over 162,000 people who were monitored for an average of five years. These studies included people from outside of Europe, which according to the researchers is important, because many studies on this type of diet have only looked at Europeans.

They found that regardless of whether people were from Europe or not, those who consumed this type of diet had a lower risk of developing diabetes.

In fact, people who followed this diet had a 21% reduced risk of developing diabetes compared to people who did not follow it.

This reduced risk was even more noticeable among people at high risk of heart disease - they were almost 27% less likely to develop diabetes.

"Diabetes is an ongoing epidemic and its relation to obesity, especially in the Westernised populations, is well known. We have to do something to prevent diabetes and changing our diet may be an effective treatment," the researchers from Athens said.

Details of their findings were presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session.