CLA Diet: Don't Bother

From the Desk of: Caroline J. Cederquist, M.D.

Is your rat fat? Is your pig, well, piggy? If you want leaner swine or rodents, you might try some conjugated linoleic acid. But if you're trying to lose weight yourself, forget the CLA diet.

CLA is derived from beef and dairy products, and most of us already consume about 150 to 200 millligrams per day through dietary intake. In clinical trials, CLA actually did help change body composition and accelerate weight loss for hundreds of subjects.

The trouble is, those subjects were pigs, rats, and chickens. When controlled studies were done with humans, CLA had virtually no effect at all.

The researchers did say that if CLA were taken in the massive doses given to animal subjects, it could make a difference, but that could mean taking up to 30 capsules of CLA a day, at a cost of about $750 a month, to say nothing of the cost in liver damage.

So the bottom line on CLA? Leave it to the livestock.

To learn more about the healthy and delicious diet meals developed by Dr. Caroline Cederquist for BistroMD, take a look at our menu here.