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 What do Mike Tyson, Bill Ford (of THE automotive company), Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts, Russell Simmons, and former president Bill Clinton all have in accordance? Seems like the start of a poor joke, right? Well, if you guessed they all eat and rally for the advantage beets of a plant-based diet, you'd be right.

(If you didn't reckon that, don't worry, you don't lose any points here...)

Surely, you've pointed out that diets similar to this are currently most of the rave and how celebrities seem to be jumping on the bandwagon left and right. But what is most of the buzz really about? Is there anything behind the hype, or could it be merely a fad diet restricted to the world's élite? Most importantly, so what can this type of diet do for the weight loss goals along with our general health and well-being?

A Look At "The Meat" Of A Plant-Based Diet

Just want it sounds, the definition of "plant-based diet" refers to any type of diet based largely on plant foods (typically of the new variety but sometimes processed plant foods are included as well) and includes cutting back hard on animal products.

But there are certainly a broad range of "plant eaters" out there foraging our supermarkets, and each one of these herbivore characters eat in accordance with different principles, depending on their health goals and/or eating philosophies.

As an example, veganism is just a strict version of this type of diet in which zero animal items are allowed, including dairy. Vegetarians, on another hand, cut right out meat but often happily gobble up milk based products, like cheese, and possibly even feast on a typical helping of eggs.

Then you definitely get the sporadic "vegetarian" who makes allowances for small amounts of seafood here and there.

I know a lady who claims to be a vegetarian but eats fish and bacon (if which makes any sense). There's even a term for her unique model of vegetarianism: Wikipedia defines her as a "semi-vegetarian."

The point, however, is that the plant-based diet is somewhat vague in actual definition and covers a wide selection of different eating practices - you will find no real hard fast rules besides the overall inclusion of a lot of plants and avoidance of meat.

Whatever camp of vegetarianism an individual chooses to check out, no-one can deny so it takes the conventional person a specific amount of self-discipline to take it up in any one of its various forms. Not just because it indicates forget about fat, juicy steaks but additionally because it needs is just a hard charge contrary to the grain in modern society, and it creates quite an inconvenience when shopping, dining out, or eating at the table of a friend.

So why do Mr. Clinton and each one of these other social superstars even bother? Is it worth the sacrifices, and would be the health benefits remarkable enough to replace the sum total life makeover it demands?

Let's have a peek.

What's So Good About "Eatin' Your Veggies?"

The plant-based dieting trend because it exists today stems from a growing pool of experts observing something inherently wrong with the Western diet. Study after study notes a plague-like epidemic of chronic diseases in the western world and highlights the way the rise of the diseases counter-intuitively corresponded with technological advancement (particularly in agriculture).

Others explain how parts of the planet where in fact the Western diet hasn't yet caught on, a diet largely related to economic development, don't suffer exactly the same alarming rates of the diseases. Actually, these diseases (which include obesity, heart problems, diabetes, and many kinds of cancer) in many cases are described in popular text as "Western diseases."

T. Colin Campbell, co-author of the groundbreaking (and sometimes controversial) book on the subject, "The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health," goes in terms of to claim that "cancer is just a geographically localized disease." He maintains that if you look at a world map, the regions of the planet with the best cancer rates clearly correlate with the regions of the planet where protein is just a large the main local diet.

Meat based diets, his camp proclaims, would be the villain.

A 40 year veteran in nutrition research, Dr. Campbell maintains that the human diet composed of more than 10% meat leads to an enormous rise in cancer risk... period. Not only that, he stresses, but a place based diet even has the ability to heal a human anatomy long battered by degenerative disease and restore good health.

And while Campbell is unquestionably probably the most active, vocal, and influential of the plant-based diet crowd, he's most certainly not the only real one.

Another study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association details how Canadian researchers fed subjects with high LDL cholesterol levels (that's the really, really bad stuff) a diet characterized by plant-based sterols, soy protein, soy milk, soy-based meat substitutes, nuts, and oats.

In the span of 6 months, the subjects saw their LDL levels drop by an average of 13% - a decline that equates to an 11% drop in the chance of a swing in the next decade.

Another proponent of the diet, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, MD, carried out a twenty year experiment on advanced heart problems patients who could actually not merely stop their condition from worsening but completely reverse it in 70% of cases. beets

And What About Weight Loss?