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Dietary vegans follow a plant-based diet that excludes all animal products, from meat to eggs to milk to animal-derivatives.

Some researchers believe following a low-fat vegan diet may help you lose weight, in part because it helps speed up your metabolism (the rate at which calories are burned). That’s the hypothesis of a study now underway by the nonprofit Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine.

The committee’s president Neal Barnard found this to be true in a study he led in 2005 and reported on in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Postmenopausal women boosted their metabolism by about 16 percent on a low-fat vegan diet.