A Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, fruit, vegetables, nuts and fish could help protect against Type 2 diabetes, a study finds.

Researchers from Spain’s University of Navarra recruited 13,000 former students at the university who had no history of diabetes and tracked their eating habits and health over a four-year period.

They found that people who strictly adhered to the diet had an 83 per cent reduction in their risk of developing diabetes.

Those who moderately followed the diet had their risk reduced by around 60 per cent, the survey revealed.

The Mediterranean diet, which is traditionally low in meat, alcohol and dairy products, is already known to help ward off heart disease, Alzheimer's and asthma.

"Our study suggests that substantial protection against diabetes can be obtained with the traditional Mediterranean diet, rich in olive oil, vegetables, fruits, nuts, cereals, legumes, and fish but relatively low in meat and dairy products," the researchers concluded.

"The limited number of cases of diabetes and the possibility of under-reporting, however, requires that further larger cohorts and trials are needed to confirm our findings."

The findings were published in the online edition of The British Medical Journal.

According to Diabetes UK, around 1.8 million people in the UK have Type 2 diabetes, while a further 750,000 are thought to be undiagnosed.