The ketogenic diet was born almost a hundred years ago, so these benefits have been studied and analyzed in depth over the past decades by the international scientific community that has dedicated itself to the topic.

The ketogenic diet is a food plan that focuses on foods that provide a lot of healthy fats, adequate amounts of protein, and very few carbohydrates. The goal is to get more calories from fat than from carbohydrates.

This type of diet works by depleting the body of its sugar stores. As a result, it will start using fat for energy.

This results in the production of so-called ketones, which the body uses as fuel. When the body burns fat, it can even lose weight.

There are several types of ketogenic diets, including the standard ketogenic diet and the cyclical ketogenic diet.

What are the Health Benefits of Keto Diet

1- Reduction of appetite
The first of the benefits of the ketogenic diet is the reduction of hunger.

The feeling of hunger is the most felt side effect when on a diet.

It is the reason why people tend to abandon diets, even if they are motivated by the best of intentions.

Many studies show that the net reduction of carbohydrates, thanks to the ketogenic diet, automatically decreases not only the feeling of hunger, but also your daily calorie intake, despite the higher fat intake.

And how can this happen?

The answer is very simple and logical. Fats have a high and lasting satiating power.

One of the reasons why the ketogenic diet works is that even if you are on a low calorie diet, you will not be hungry and this will allow you to live the restriction more peacefully.

The high consumption of fats and the production of ketone bodies contribute to increasing the sense of satiety, sending a signal to a specific area of ​​our brain, the hypothalamus, where the sense of hunger and satiety reside.

You will experience a reduction in appetite from the very first days when you switch to the ketogenic regime.

Furthermore, by eliminating junk food and most carbohydrates, you will keep hunger at bay precisely because these foods, causing insulin spikes, increase the sense of appetite.

2- Weight loss
Carbohydrate reduction is one of the simplest and most effective ways to lose weight.

Studies show that people who follow a ketogenic diet lose more weight, faster, than those who follow low-fat diets, even when the latter limit calories.

Low-carb diets actually rid the body of excess water, lowering insulin levels and leading to rapid weight loss.

In studies comparing low-carb to low-fat diets, people who restrict their carbs sometimes lose 2-3 times more weight, without feeling hungry.

3- Waist reduction
Not all fat in your body is the same.

Depending on where the fat is stored, it can more or less affect your health and disease risk.

The two main types are subcutaneous fat, more common in women and found under the skin, and visceral fat, which accumulates on the abdomen and is typical of most overweight men.

Visceral fat tends to accumulate around the organs. Excess visceral fat is associated with inflammation and insulin resistance – and can lead to metabolic syndrome, so common today in Western countries.

The benefits of ketogenic nutrition include its effectiveness in reducing this abdominal fat which is so harmful to health.

Over time, this type of diet leads to a drastic reduction in the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

4- Increased energy
When your body starts burning fat, thanks to the ketogenic diet and the ketosis it establishes, you will no longer feel lack of energy.

Many scholars believe that the heart and brain work 25% more when they work thanks to ketones rather than thanks to glucose.

This is one of the main benefits you will experience during the ketogenic diet: increased energy, less body fatigue and better focus.

And all this is logical when you consider that the human species has lived on the ketogenic diet for over two million years!

5- Improvement of brain performance
Ketones have been shown to be one of the best sources of fuel for your brain, being neuroprotective antioxidants.

As proof of this, the ketogenic diet is the dietary protocol used for the treatment of epilepsy, even in children.

Numerous studies confirm its effectiveness also in the prevention of some diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

6- Regulation of blood sugar levels
The ketogenic diet has the power to decrease blood glucose levels.

This means that as soon as you enter the state of ketosis, the blood sugar level will drop and become more stable, causing a sudden decrease in food cravings.

7- Reduction of hypertension
When adapting to the ketogenic diet, a direct benefit of excess weight loss is that blood pressure is lowered.

The increase in blood pressure is not something that you may worry about or that you can perceive, but, in reality, it is a condition that, if left untreated, could cause many health problems.

By excluding refined sugars, bread, carbonated drinks, convenience foods and fast food, you will not reduce your carbohydrate intake, but also that of salt, an element of which all these foods are abundantly added, and which is one of the causes main factors of hypertension.

8- Reduction of bad LDL cholesterol
The high amount of bad cholesterol in the blood is a major culprit in the development of heart disease.

Through the ketogenic lifestyle, it is possible to significantly reduce these blood cholesterol levels.

In the next few lessons we will look at everything there is to know about fats, but for now, know that it is possible to consume high-fat foods such as eggs, butter, oils, and dairy products, including cream, while reducing the bad cholesterol levels of 10-20% over the first 3 months.

All this thanks to the drastic reduction of carbohydrates and insulin levels in the blood.

However, at the beginning of the ketogenic diet, it may happen that your total cholesterol level rises, especially if you have a pre-existing state of insulin resistance.

In any case, you don’t need to worry because the ketogenic lifestyle will help you normalize the cholesterol and insulin values ​​in the blood, giving you a feeling of well-being never experienced before!

9- Lowering the risk of developing metabolic syndrome
Metabolic syndrome is a condition that is highly associated with the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

In fact, the metabolic syndrome presents a set of symptoms, which include:

• abdominal obesity;
• high blood pressure;
• high fasting blood sugar levels;
• triglycerides beyond the norm;
• low levels of HDL cholesterol, the so-called good cholesterol.

However, studies show that a low-carbohydrate diet such as the ketogenic diet is incredibly effective in treating all five of these symptoms.