University researchers—from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem; and the University of South Carolina, Columbia—recently studied the body-composition effects of supplementing nearly 50 obese individuals’ diets with conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). The results of this study were published in the May 2007 issue of The Journal of Nutrition.
The authors note that CLA alters body composition in animal models, “but few studies have examined the effects of CLA supplementation on body composition and clinical safety measures in obese humans.” Their study involved a trial examining the changes in body composition resulting from CLA (a 50:50 ratio of cis-9, trans-11 and trans-10, cis-12 isomers) supplementation for 12 weeks in 48 (13 male, 35 female) obese, but otherwise healthy, humans. The participants received either a placebo, 3.2 grams CLA per day, or 6.4 grams CLA per day. Researchers then evaluated changes in the subjects’ body fat mass and lean body mass.
Results showed that lean body mass increased by 0.64 kg in the group supplementing their diets with 6.4 grams CLA per day. The researchers also noted “significant decreases in serum HDL-cholesterol and sodium, hemoglobin, and hematocrit, and significant increases in serum alkaline phosphatase, C-reactive protein, and IL-6, and white blood cells … although all values remained within normal limits. The intervention was well tolerated and no severe adverse events were reported, although mild gastrointestinal adverse events were reported in all treatment groups.” This led them to conclude that “CLA may increase lean body mass in obese humans” and that “it may also increase markers of inflammation in the short term.”
