CLA : Does It Really Reduce Body Fat?

There has been a lot of discussion about CLA in the world of health and overall wellness and anti cancer properties, as well as in the world of dieting and weightloss.  I remember initially hearing about this acid when I was much younger for the first time.

Someone had told me that it was the latest “miracle” supplement that would help your body to retain lean muscle and lose extra fat.  Who wouldn’t want that!  So I remember that I took it for about a month, saw no results, and stopped taking it because I was bored with it.

Back then I had a much shorter attention span, and I always expected instant results. Instead of sticking with it for a while and seeing if  it made any difference in my goals to be more of a “fat free” kind of gal, I ditched it after a month.

Often times, one month is not long enough to let a supplement work, and to really build up levels of a certain nutrient that has certain therapeutic properties in the blood stream so that it can actually DO what it says.

However, I read that CLA after all did not really show much of a difference in reduction of body fat in human trials. I think that was more of a wishful thinking thing by scientists who had seen positive results in lab rats.

With that in mind though, there are some who still firmly believe that CLA not only can help you to retain lean muscle mass and shed body fat when you take it over time, but there is also quite a bit of evidence that CLA has some excellent benefits as a weapon against cancer.

In fact, it was shown that tumors were basically much smaller or nonexistent in mice who had high levels of CLA in their blood stream, whereas those mice that did not, developed larger and perhaps more agressive tumors.

Similar effects have been seen in humans. Cancers of the mammary glands ( breast cancer), prostate cancer and other types of cancer have shown to be inhibited by high levels of CLA in the blood stream.

So, aside from adding another supplement to your regimen, what can you do to build your levels of this acid in your blood and at least gain the known benefits of it?  By the way, the full name for it is Conjugated Linoleic Acid.

The foods you can eat that are high in CLA are eggs, preferably organic and cage free, any type of organic milk, since cows that eat grass typically produce milk and meat that is much higher in CLA, and cheeses that are full-fat cheese.

Cow meat from cows that are grass fed are sky high in CLA.  Eating foods high in CLA may be connected to maintaining a healthy body weight.