A new study states that low-carb diet not only promotes weight loss but also helps in maintaining a healthy blood pressure.

"I expected the weight loss to be considerable with a low-carb diet as well as with a weight loss drug but we were surprised to see blood pressure improve much more with the low-carbohydrate diet than with orlistat," researcher William S. Yancy, Jr., MD, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center, said.

Researchers however stated that the studies have proved in the past that that the two weight loss methods were effective for losing weight, but for the first time the health effects of both were compared.

For a study that was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 146 obese or overweight adults were separated into two groups. A majority of people put under study had chronic health problems like high blood pressure or diabetes.

One of the groups was administered a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet. This diet had less than 20 grams of carbohydrates on a daily basis, and the second group received orlistat thrice a day, for over 48 weeks.

According to the results, weight loss was similar in both the groups. But when the researchers looked at the blood pressure changes, they noticed that almost half who took low-carb diet noticed a decrease in their blood pressure medication decreased or discontinued.