CLA. Conjugated Linoleic Acid
A Fat Burning & Muscle Building Fat

By Xavier Fox 

In the quest to lose body fat many people out there get the wrong idea, and they attempt to lose body fat by eliminating as much fat out of their diet as possible. Red meat becomes the enemy, and they consume as much protein as they can from whey powder sources that is virtually fat-free. What if we told you that in order to lose fat… you had to consume fat? And a source of fat found mainly in red meat and dairy milk at that? Sound strange? Not if that fat is an essential fatty acid known as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). This member of the omega-6 fatty acid family will not only help you to lose excess body fat, it will also spare muscle loss, accelerate the production of energy, and it is a powerful antioxidant that will reduce cellular damage in your body so you can stay strong and healthy. Sounds pretty freaking sweet if you ask me.

The majority of interest in CLA began back in the 70’s when it was discovered accidentally during scientific studies being performed at the University of Wisconsin. The scientists were studying the effects of cancer on mice, and one group that was given a beef extract developed 20% less tumours than the non-beef extract groups. The scientists continued to narrow down the responsible elements until almost a decade later when it was finally known that CLA was the reason for the reduction in tumours. With all of the negative publicity that red meat seems to get, who would have thought a compound found in beef products, whole milk, butter and even lamb would help reduce cancer? Oh, and for all of you Australians out there… kangaroo meat is supposed to have the highest CLA concentrations of all.
CLA is what is known as an essential fatty acid. This means that it is essential we eat foods or take supplements that contain CLA because our bodies do not have the ability to produce CLA from other compounds we consume. When foods are considered non-essential, it means that our body can assimilate them from other compounds we ingest. It is much like the ten essential amino acids that we must consume by eating food sources with complete proteins. The other 13 amino acids can be created from other amino acids, so it is not necessary to consume them directly. If you are trying to keep your fat intake low, and thus eliminating red meat from your diet, then it becomes almost a given that you should make CLA supplements part of your daily routine.
Let’s return to why CLA is able to reduce the effects of cancer. This is due to CLA’s very powerful antioxidant characteristics. Antioxidants are very important for combating the damaging effects of free radicals. Sometimes the bonds in the molecules floating around our system are weak and an electron is lost. This causes an atom or molecule to be floating around that is missing an electron in its outer shell and it becomes unstable and in search of another electron. This is what is meant by the term “free radical”. Any new free radical steals an electron so that it can become stable, then the free radical it created does the same thing, and the chain reaction continues. This continual creation of free radicals can end up disrupting the behaviour of the entire cell, because they steal electrons from the nucleic acids, proteins, or enzymes. The cell itself cannot stabilize due to all of the free radical commotion that is going on inside of it.
Free radicals are created in great numbers in the mitochondria and the DNA. The mitochondria are the main suppliers for energy in the system, so if their structure is altered, they will no longer be able to be an effective energy source. Chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia will result if this process is permitted to maintain itself. If the DNA is altered and not functioning the way it should, then the body cannot carry the genetic information necessary for cell functions, including making the proteins needed for cell maintenance and repair. If your system cannot properly produce proteins, then you will not be able to effectively repair and grow muscle tissue. What an antioxidant does is donate an electron to these free radicals in order to stabilize them. Substances that are antioxidants are able to function normally without the electron they give up, so they do not act as free radicals themselves and they break they destructive chain. Now cell damage is significantly reduced and a lot of tissue is spared, especially muscle.
For bodybuilders, the antioxidant ability to spare muscle and keep mitochondria healthy are obviously tremendous. However, as we alluded to already, allowing free radicals to run rampant can also lead to cancer in your body. CLA is thought to reduce oxidative stress and modulate intracellular signalling, and those actions allow CLA to inhibit the process by which normal cells are transformed into cancer cells. Studies have also demonstrated CLA’s ability to reduce the proliferation of breast cancer cells. Most of the studies done have been with animals, but CLA has shown to reduce breast cancer tumours (benign and malignant), prostate tumours, stomach cancer and lung cancer. Mice supplemented with CLA also showed an increase in liver stores of vitamin A, which is a powerful antioxidant all in itself. Not only is CLA a powerful antioxidant, but it also helps your body to stockpile other antioxidants as well.
A couple of paragraphs ago, it was mentioned that CLA can help spare muscle tissue loss, and we all know that got everyone who is reading this article’s attention! Bodybuilders love nothing more than to read about losing fat and not losing muscle. CLA has shown to offset catabolism, which is the process that your body utilizes to break down existing muscle tissue in order to use it to create energy or provide amino acids that help sustain thousands of other possible processes. Obviously, if your body is eating up your existing muscle tissue you will not be doing a whole lot of growing. Your anabolic processes must stay ahead of your catabolic processes if you are going to add muscle.
A scientist by the last name of Pinkoski had subjects undergo intense weight training routines for three days per week. In a mere seven weeks, the CLA group experienced a lean tissue mass gain of 1.4kg compared to the placebo group which gained only 0.2kg. In addition, the CLA group had an average loss of 0.8kg of fat mass compared to the placebo group of 0.4kg. That may seem small, but it is twice as much, and do not forget that this study only lasted seven weeks. The researchers felt that if the study had continued for a longer duration, the subjects would have continued to experience much more significant gains in lean muscle mass ad body fat loss. I do not know about you, but I would certainly be happy with 1.4kg of lean muscle mass gain in less than two months!
Although the shear gain in muscle mass and loss of fat may not have had staggering numbers, the real eye-opener of the study was the anti-catabolic effects that CLA displayed. The most remarkable discovery was that urinalysis results showed myofibrillar degradation, which is directly related to a decrease in catabolic activity on muscle protein. In addition, protein synthesis increased considerably in the subjects that supplemented with CLA. The CLA allowed their systems to create a much enhanced anabolic environment… and we all that means that the body is primed for adding muscle and losing body fat simultaneously! Is there anyone out there that doesn’t want that to happen? When it comes to the effect CLA had on the strength of the subjects in the study, the males who were in the CLA group exhibited statistically significant gains in their bench press. If you are adding strength… you are adding muscle, plain and simple.
Another scientist named Kreider did his own study on CLA with athletes. He found some interesting things as well. Kreider discovered the CLA group showed a decrease in the ratio of blood urea nitrogen to creatinine. The reason this is important is that when blood urea nitrogen is high as compared to creatinine it means that the body is in a catabolic state. The findings indicated that CLA was able to severely slow down any catabolic response to working out. Of course, if you are slowing down catabolism… you are speeding up the rate at which the body adds new muscle.
Inhibiting catabolism and increasing protein synthesis are not all that CLA does to help you get big. If we look again at CLA’s ability to function as an antioxidant, it is apparent that CLA helps to keep the immune system strong. If your immune system is not strong, there could be some repercussions on your ability to gain muscle. When your immune system is weak, it will need to break down proteins in order to help the body combat infections. Well, guess where these proteins come from? You guessed it… they come from muscle tissue. CLA helps the immune system function much more efficiently so that this process requires a lot less protein to perform the same functions. Your body will be able to use those proteins to add new muscle instead of fight bacteria. In addition, this new muscle will make your metabolism even faster, since higher amounts of muscle cause your resting metabolic rate to increase.
Do you recall when we said that eating fat can help you lose fat? Well, by consuming foods that contain CLA, you can improve your metabolism and burn calories at a higher rate. The Journal of Nutrition referred to a study where subjects who were given 3.4 grams of CLA per day lost on average 2.5 kilograms more body fat than the placebo group in the same study did. The fat that was lost came form the abdominal area where it is most noticeable.
The reason that CLA is able to do this is because it reduces the amount of an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase, which is the enzyme responsible for transporting fat out of the blood and into storage. By reducing this enzyme, there is not as much fat being pushed into storage by the body, and the fat is instead left in the blood stream where it can be effectively utilized to produce energy or it is removed as waste. To add to the removal of fat from the body, CLA also boosts lipase activity inside of fat cells, and that is the key enzyme that triggers stored fat to be broken down and used. Therefore, not only do you have less being pushed into storage, but at the same time your body is being signalled to burn more fat. And…as if that was not enough… CLA has demonstrated the ability to completely block the formation of new fat cells in the body. Talk about a 1-2-3 combination! CLA throws the 1-2-3 combination punch at body fat to knock it out of your system.
CLA does not stop there though. CLA also stimulates the production and release of certain enzymes which increase glucose transport into the cells. Your body becomes less sensitive to insulin because the glucose is in the cells instead of in the blood stream. Less insulin is released into the system which leads to less body fat being accumulated. CLA allows for your blood sugar levels to stay lower and steadier to keep you from suffering from many of the potential issues that come along with high blood sugar levels such as weight gain and diabetes. A nice “side-effect” of CLA’s ability to burn off body fat is that your cholesterol levels are reduced, especially the LDL cholesterol, also known as “bad” cholesterol. Just another way that CLA keeps you healthy.
So… what are you waiting for? You just read about a supplement that helps you burn more fat, release fat so that you can produce more energy, increase your ability to add muscle, reduce cholesterol, and it even strengthens your immune system to keep you healthy and spare further muscle tissue damage. You should be at your favourite supplement store buying some CLA now so you can get large and lean. Take 1000mg three times per day, and you will soon see a new physique looking back at you in the mirror.