As per a study that has been financially supported by the National Institutes of Health, low-carbohydrate weight loss diets are better at improving HDL cholesterol level for longer term than the low-fat diets.

People, who followed dieting pattern based on low-carb or low-fat for almost two years and along with that brought some modifications in their lifestyle, lost similar amount of weight, with a standard of 7% of their body weight or 15 pounds.

However, all through the study, people who followed the low-carb dietary pattern had improved HDL or good cholesterol levels whereas the ones on low-fat diet plan did not have a comparable level of HDL.

For initial six months while the study went on, dieters following low-fat plan had striking reductions in LDL; however, the difference did not last long.

This is not the foremost study to have established that low-carb dietary patterns such as the Atkins are safer and could be possible that they are better than low-fat diets, since low-carb diets are capable of reducing the risk of heart diseases.

Gary D. Foster, PhD of the Temple University's Center for Obesity Research and Education said this the study was one of the longest studies to establish that low-carb diets are better than low-fat in improving cholesterol.