The Atlantic Diet: Why Eating Local, Whole Foods May Improve Your Health

You've already heard of the Mediterranean diet, chock-full of heart-healthy benefits and links to general wellness. But have you heard of the Atlantic diet? A study published in JAMA linked a diet plentiful in fish, dried fruits, vegetables, beans and minimally processed foods with a lower risk of metabolic syndrome, a term for a variety of common health conditions that raise the risk of chronic disease. Specifically, researchers in 2014 and 2015 recruited families, which included more than 500 individual participants, to compare their rate of developing metabolic syndrome during a six-month follow-up. A secondary analysis of the study was conducted from 2021 to late 2023. Those who followed the Atlantic diet were less likely to develop metabolic syndrome (3% of people who didn't have metabolic syndrome in the study) than those who stuck with their usual lifestyle (7%). The Atlantic diet is similar to the Mediterranean diet in that it's far from new -- it's based on the lifestyle of ... Read full article.