Does CLA Really Work?

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The consensus answer is “maybe/kinda.”

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) has been heavily promoted for many years now as being effective at reducing fat.  Some really aggressive marketing efforts have been put into place that make it seem like the panacea of fat loss.

If this were true, wouldn’t this be a wildly fast-selling supplement that everyone would be raving about?

Of course it would.

The reason why it is not, is that although it does tend to work to at least some degree, when taken long-term…it seems really only effective in about half the people that use it, and, the results are not substantial enough for people to really bother.

Studies seem to be 50/50.

However, another added bonus is that CLA might also decrease inflammation linked to insulin resistance, diabetes and poor sex drive.

Since it seems to be safe and without side effects after years of taking it in some studies, it may be worth experimenting with for some folks who are prone to type 2 diabetes as an added boost to their efforts.  It may be tailed more to these types of conditions than others, but there isn’t any solid evidence supporting this conjecture…it’s more just my personal opinion.

As most of you know, I support simply following a new lifestyle as referenced in my program above all else.  I’m big on specific kinds of carefully chosen supplementation, especially for folks over 40 (and even much younger for some supplements) but it really has to boil down to how one lives their lives above all else.  It’s the “supplement cure” notion, the idea that a pill will solve all our problems, that has become the selling cliche of the past century; causing people to spend endless amounts of money on the alleged quick-fix, over putting the time in to really tend to their own health first, in an effort to create the desired results.

Hence my program.

Love, Happiness, Health and Peace………….Tim

 

 

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Dr. Oz Watchdog…Today’s Omissions Regarding Vitamin D:

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I don’t know if the show today was a repeat or not, it may have been.

As I’ve mentioned before, I basically like Dr. Oz.  My biggest problem with him is that he does not go into enough detail most of the time, and people become mislead about what they should be doing to best tend to their own health.

Today it was about vitamin D.

A bunch of vitmin D sources were covered, including a lot of enriched foods.  What frustrates me, is that if you read the labels of a lot of enriched foods, you will find that they often use a form of vitamin d2…D TWO…as the source of vitamin D.  Vitamin D3…THREE…has been shown to be a far superior source of vitamin D when taken to increase D levels as effectively as possible.

Countless foods use the inferior D2, likely because it is cheaper to use, increasing the product’s profit margin, while still enabling them to claim that there is vitamin D in the product as nothing more than a marketing pitch.

I am uncertain whether the same measurement of daily values would apply to the D2 vs the D3, but I’m tending to lean towards the idea that there is no differentiation.  And if there is not, consumers are being mislead constantly about exactly how high that percentage listed on the label really applies to their individual needs.  If we’re being told that we’re getting “100% of the Daily Value” of vitamin D (which according to vitamin D expert Dr. Holick is extremely low, and I completely concur) yet the D supplied is D2…are we REALLY getting that 100% of our alleged need?

Then they briefly covered mushrooms, and showed a product that is specially grown in UV light to increase the amount of vitamin D present in the shroom…just bizarre to me…why people are growing food in UV light instead of the sun.  I believe it’s highly probable that food grown in the sun has components to it that we don’t even understand yet; sub-atomic workings of the sun that feed the plants that in turn create micro nutrients on a level that we intuitively “know” are natural and healthy for us, but perhaps we can’t yet explain.

Kinda like getting our D from the sun instead of tanning beds…yes, the tanning beds will work, but short time spent in the sun is almost definitely more beneficial on multiple levels.

So it’s again the omissions that concern me.

Because I know my local health food store gets bombarded after every Dr. Oz show with product requests that Dr. Oz discussed.  I’ve witnessed it first hand, and know the store workers personally.  They often feel the same frustration I do about what is being promoted on Dr. Oz’ show.

Again…he’s not BAD.

He just needs a lot of improvement.

Love, Happiness, Health and Peace…………..Tim

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