Can CLA Help You Lose Weight?
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 by Joann LynnOctober 2008 Can CLA help you lose weight? If you're thinking about taking CLA  supplements read this article first.Conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA for short, has been claimed to promote fat loss and increase lean body mass in supplemental form. Because of its potential for weight loss, there has been a huge amount of CLA research on animals and humans in the past few years. However, the majority of studies looking at the weight loss effects of CLA supplementation on humans report no influence on total weight or fat mass. Side effects were also investigated, yielding mixed results. But despite the lack of evidence, CLA is currently marketed and sold as a weight loss supplement. So what is CLA? CLA is a polyunsaturated fatty acid, one type of the omega-6’s you hear about these days. It occurs naturally in dairy and meats as less than 1% of the total fat, more so when the animal is grass fed, and we get between 0.1 to 0.3 grams per day from our normal diets. In the supplemental form, CLA is synthesized through a partial hydrogenation process of linoleic acid. Labels on CLA supplement bottles instruct a total daily intake of between 1 and 5 grams, 10 or more times our dietary intake. Studies on mice and other animals revealed positive results for fat loss and increased lean body mass. However, studies on humans have conflicting results. According to an article published this year in Nutrition Reviews, of the 16 studies done on CLA weight loss supplementation for normal weight human individuals, none reported any total weight loss, and only five reported fat loss, several of which included an exercise training program. All of the other trials showed no change in weight or body fat mass. Furthermore, out of 23 studies done on obese individuals, only four of those experiments resulted in weight loss and seven in fat loss. Negative side effects that were found in some studies include mild gastrointestinal disorders, liver toxicity, increase of LDL (bad cholesterol), decrease of HDL (good cholesterol), and inflammation. One theory for the bad side effects is that the synthesis process contains several forms of CLA, some of which may be toxic, yet much more research needs to be done. Since the mechanism of CLA in our bodies is not understood, and very little evidence exists for beneficial effects, supplementation is not recommended.  References: Plourde, Melanie, et al., “Conjugated linoleic acids: why the discrepancy between animal and human studies?”, Nutrition Reviews, 66, p415, 2008. Silveira, Manuela-Belen, et al., “Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and obesity”, Public Health Nutrition, 10, p1181, 2007. Steck, Susan E., et al., “Conjugated Linoleic Acid Supplementation for Twelve Weeks Increases Lean Body Mass in Obese Humans”, Journal of Nutrition, 2007. |
