Estudios científicos
Traditional Atlantic Diet and Its Effect on Health and the Environment: A Secondary Analysis of the GALIAT Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial.
Abstract:
Importance: The universal call to action for healthier and more sustainable dietary choices is the framework of the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals. The Atlantic diet, originating from the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, represents an example of a traditional diet that aligns with these principles.
Objective: To explore a 6-month intervention based on the Atlantic diet’s effects on metabolic and environmental health, assessing metabolic syndrome (MetS) incidence and the carbon footprint.
Design, setting, and participants: The Galician Atlantic Diet study was a 6-month randomized clinical trial designed to assess the effects of this regional traditional diet on families’ eating habits. The study was conducted from March 3, 2014, to May 29, 2015, at a local primary health care center in the rural town of A Estrada in northwestern Spain and involved a multisectoral collaboration. Families were randomly selected from National Health System records and randomized 1:1 to an intervention or control group. This secondary analysis of the trial findings was performed between March 24, 2021, and November 7, 2023.
Interventions: Over 6 months, families in the intervention group received educational sessions, cooking classes, written supporting material, and foods characteristic of the Atlantic diet, whereas those randomized to the control group continued with their habitual lifestyle.
Main outcomes and measures: The main outcomes were MetS incidence, defined per National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III guidelines, and carbon footprint emissions as an environmental metric using life cycle assessment with daily dietary intake as the functional unit.
Results: Initially, 250 families were randomized (574 participants; mean [SD] age, 46.8 [15.7] years; 231 males [40.2%] and 343 females [59.8%]). The intervention group included 126 families (287 participants) and the control group, 124 families (287 participants). Ultimately, 231 families completed the trial. The intervention significantly reduced the risk of incident cases of MetS (rate ratio, 0.32; 95% CI, 0.13-0.79) and had fewer MetS components (proportional odds ratio, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.42-0.82) compared with the control condition. The intervention group did not have a significantly reduced environmental impact in terms of carbon footprint emissions compared with the control group (-0.17 [95% CI, -0.46 to 0.12] kg CO2 equivalents/person/d).
Conclusions and relevance: These findings provide important evidence that a family-focused dietary intervention based on a traditional diet can reduce the risk of incident MetS. Further research is needed to understand the underlying mechanisms and determine the generalizability to other populations, taking into account regional cultural and dietary variations.
Comentarios divulgativos:
La dieta atlántica tradicional es característica de las regiones del noroeste de España y Portugal, e incluye alimentos frescos de temporada, de producción local y mínimamente procesados: ej. verduras, frutas, cereales integrales, judías y aceite de oliva, también incluye un alto consumo de pescado y marisco, alimentos ricos en almidón (patatas, pan), frutos secos (especialmente castañas), leche, queso y una ingesta moderada de carne y vino.
Esta investigación es un análisis secundario del ensayo clínico aleatorizado GALIAT, que pretende medir el efecto de una intervención durante 6 meses con la dieta atlántica tradicional en la salud; valorando si es capaz de reducir la incidencia de síndrome metabólico y su pronóstico, y su impacto en el medio ambiente; a través de la huella de carbono. Tras la intervención se encontró que la dieta atlántica redujo la incidencia de nuevos casos de síndrome metabólico y mostraba una tendencia (no significativa) a una menor emisión de gases de efecto invernadero.
En el estudio participaron 250 familias del noroeste de España: un total de 574 participantes; edad media: 46,8 ± 15,7 años; 59,8% mujeres. Las familias se aleatorizaron en dos grupos, el grupo control que continuó con su estilo de vida habitual y el grupo intervención que recibió sesiones y material educativo para mejorar la adherencia a la dieta atlántica tradicional.
Más concretamente, se observó que las familias del grupo intervención que seguían la dieta atlántica tenían un 42% menos de probabilidades de presentar un componente adicional del síndrome metabólico. Aunque no se encontró una reducción en el riesgo relativo de los siguientes componentes del síndrome metabólico por separado: hipertensión arterial, hipertrigliceridemia o hiperglucemia.
