Research
Energy balance
A ketogenic diet leads to greater weight loss compared to low-fat diets in patients with overweight or obesity, regardless of diabetes status.
If you are overweight or obese, a ketogenic diet is likely to help you lose more weight than a standard low-fat diet, whether or not you have diabetes. This benefit is consistent across diabetic and non-diabetic groups.
GoodSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Ketogenic diets led to substantial weight reduction (SMD, −0.46; p = 0.04) irrespective of patients’ diabetes status at baseline
Why this rating
Meta-analysis of 14 RCTs, moderate to low quality evidence due to heterogeneity (I2=78%).
Source
Impact of a Ketogenic Diet on Metabolic Parameters in Patients with Obesity or Overweight and with or without Type 2 Diabetes: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
Yeo Jin Choi et al. · Nutrients · 2020
DOI 10.3390/nu12072005
Meta-analysis · 14 studiesCited 197×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- A ketogenic diet is more effective than low-fat diets for improving glycemic control (HbA1c and HOMA-IR) in patients with type 2 diabetes, but shows comparable effects in non-diabetic patients.Good
- In non-diabetic patients, a ketogenic diet increases LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol compared to low-fat diets, whereas in diabetic patients, it improves lipid profiles by lowering triglycerides and raising HDL.Moderate
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