The Atlantic diet focuses on the traditional cuisine of Northern Portugal and Galicia – Getty The Atlantic diet made headlines around the world when a new study showed that people following the diet lost several inches around their waistline.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open , demonstrated that the group who followed the diet reduced their risk of metabolic syndrome by a third in just six months.

Metabolic syndrome is made up of five key health risks including high blood sugar, high blood pressure and a large waistline. Untreated it can lead to diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Experts rushed to explain the new diet on the block, but fundamentally the Atlantic diet is best understood as a cousin of the much-studied and much-lauded Mediterranean diet . It shares many of the key elements, with some notable differences too. Read on for everything you need to know. Or skip straight to the five-day Atlantic diet plan and recipes What is the Atlantic diet?

Although the name suggests that the diet covers a vast oceanic area, the Atlantic diet is focused on quite a specific region: the traditional cuisine of Northern Portugal and Galicia, a region in north-west Spain.

Like the Mediterranean diet, the Atlantic diet emphasises: Fresh seasonal vegetables

Three or four portions of fish a week

Communal eating and traditional cooking methods

Starchy carbohydrates such as potatoes Red meat including pork and beef Cod, dairy and brassica vegetables such as broccoli “The Atlantic Diet focuses on seafood, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats, mirroring the most studied diet in the world, the Mediterranean diet, but with a focus on brassica vegetables like kale and cabbage and other starchy carbs like potato and bread too, “ says Nichola Ludlam-Raine, a dietitian and the author of forthcoming book How Not To Eat Ultra-Processed .With the focus on cod, potatoes and broccoli, the ingredients will feel familiar to many in Britain.“It resembles a UK diet, or at least foods that can be produced far more readily in the UK than some of the Mediterranean […]

The Atlantic diet: Benefits, food list and recipes