Fat May Help You Lose Weight? (CLA)

Did you know that consuming a certain kind of fat every day may be able to help you shed pounds more easily?

Well, its true. The fat is called Conjugated Linoleic Acid, or CLA for short, and its another tool you can use in your weight loss regimen.

Weight loss has become one of the major challenges of our time. And interventions like stomach stapling and lap band surgery are growing as popular as fad diets. Over half of our American population struggles with weight, and the effects can be deadly. If you're someone who has tried losing weight to no avail, maybe you just need a jump-start.

CLA was discovered in 1978 in my home state at the University of Wisconsin. A group of scientists were studying the components of hamburger meat. They found a substance in the beef that seemed to block the formation of cancer-causing cells. That substance was CLA, and while the scientists were happy to find something natural that could block tumors from forming, they were about to learn how CLA could do so much more.

The power of this healthy fat has been documented in thousands of scientific studies. For example, in 1994 the group who discovered CLA showed that it could reduce the inflammation associated with autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Graves' Disease. In that same year, they found that subjects who consumed CLA had lower levels of "bad" cholesterol than those who never consumed CLA. In a famous study in 1997, mice who were given CLA had 60 percent less body fat and 14 percent more muscle than those not given CLA.

That was impressive, to say the least, but we're not mice, and I wanted to know, Does it work in humans? Well a research team in Norway studied a large group of people who were overweight and told them not to change their eating habits and not to exercise - only take a CLA capsule with every meal. The group taking the CLA - you guessed it - lost fat and gained muscle.

So what does that mean for us? I don't think we should depend on a supplement alone for weight loss. A healthy diet - like Doug's Phase One Diet - is essential for good health. Check with your doctor to see if you can begin a sensible exercise program. And take a look at CLA for additional support. We use the same form of CLA as they did in the Norway study, and we think it could be a huge help for those of you who are looking for that extra edge in the battle of the bulge.

Would you like to know more about the power of healthy fat? Call my office or visit the CLA web page.

I'm Guy Evans, and now you know!