The low-carbohydrate, high-fat ketogenic diet is a proven way to lose weight (1). It also has powerful advantages against type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, and can even help in the treatment of cancer (2, 3, 4).

Here are nine graphs showing the many powerful benefits of a ketogenic diet.

1. It can help you lose weight

More than 20 studies have shown that with a low-carbohydrate or ketogenic diet for you to lose weight. The weight loss is usually much greater than with a high-carbohydrate diet (5).

In the chart above, lost the ketogenic group research more weight, despite the fact that their protein and caloric intake was similar to the non-ketogenic group (6).

The ketogenic group also had fewer hunger and found it easier to stick to the diet to keep. This suggests that a low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet or a clear "metabolic advantage" provides compared to a carbohydrate-rich diet.

2. It helps you to reduce harmful belly fat

Excess abdominal fat is a major risk factor for all types of metabolic diseases (11, 12). This type of fat can increase the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and premature death (12).

Interestingly, a ketogenic diet is a very effective way to lose belly fat.

As shown in the above graph can be seen, a ketogenic diet reduced the total weight, the body fat and abdominal fat much more than a low-fat diet (11).

These findings were more pronounced in men than in women, probably because men tend to have more fat to store in this area.

3. It can help you burn more fat during exercise

A ketogenic diet improves your "metabolic flexibility" and helps you burn stored body fat for energy instead of glucose (9, 13, 14).

The graph shows that runners adapted to a ketogenic diet, while training can burn 2.3 times more fat per minute than runners with a low-fat diet.

In the long term, an increased ability to provide and protect fat burning several health benefits against obesity (15).

4. It can lower blood sugar

Over the years to high-carbohydrate diets and poor insulin function lead to high blood sugar levels (16).

High blood sugar levels can lead to type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease and premature aging, just to name a few (17, 18, 19, 20).

Interestingly, a ketogenic diet can be very beneficial for people with diabetes and high blood sugar.

As seen in the graph, removing carbs from your diet can dramatically lower blood sugar in people who have high blood sugar at the beginning (16).

5. It drastically reduces the insulin resistance

Like the blood sugar level is your level of insulin resistance directly linked to your health and risk of disease (21, 22, 23).

The study found that a ketogenic diet significantly reduced insulin levels in diabetics, indicating a decreased insulin resistance (21).

The ketogenic group also lost 5.8 kg, while the high-carbohydrate group lost only 1.9 kg. The triglyceride levels fell by 20% in the group of ketogenic, compared to only 4% in the high-carbohydrate group.

6. It can help lower triglycerides

Blood Triglycerides are an important marker for heart health and describe the amount of fat in your blood. High levels are linked to increased risk of heart disease (24, 25).

The increased risk may reach 30% in men and 75% in women (26).

The study found that a ketogenic diet fasting triglyceride levels decreased by 44%, while no change was observed in the low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet (24).

In addition, the amount of fat in the blood was significantly reduced after meals, as evidenced by the graph above.

The ketogenic diet also improved other markers of metabolic syndrome. For example, it caused more weight loss, reduced the triglyceride: HDL ratio and reduced blood sugar levels (24).

7. It can increase HDL ("good") cholesterol

HDL cholesterol plays a key role in cholesterol metabolism by helping your body to recycle or remove (27, 28).

Higher HDL values ​​are linked to a reduced risk of heart disease (29, 30, 31).

One of the best ways to increase HDL is by increasing the fat intake via a low-carbohydrate or ketogenic diet (16).

As you can see in the graph above, a ketogenic diet can lead to a major rise in HDL content (16).

8. Experienced hunger is lower

At a diet, constant hunger often leads to food attacks or fully stopping the diet. One of the main reasons why carbohydrate and ketogenic diets are so beneficial for weight loss, is the fact that they reduce the feeling of hunger.

In the above study, a ketogenic diet was compared with a low-fat diet. The ketogenic diet group reported much less hunger, despite the fact that they lost 46% more weight (6).

10. It can reduce the tumor size