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TUESDAY, Aug. 22 (HealthSCOUT) -- If you're sick of the drastic swings of dieting, where fat drops off at first but returns with a vengeance, a new study may give you some hope.
Combine your diet with a popular supplement called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), say researchers, and while you'll still regain weight once you stop dieting, it will be more muscle than usual.

Found naturally in cheese, beef and ground turkey, CLA is considered an antioxidant and anticarcinogen that stimulates immune activity.

While it may not be a magic weight-loss pill, experts say CLA could provide some help for the 97 million Americans struggling with obesity.

The study, by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was presented yesterday at the American Chemical Society Meeting in Washington, D.C., by one of its lead researchers, Michael W. Pariza.

Eighty people were placed on a diet, coupled with a moderate physical exercise program. Half received about 3 grams of CLA daily, while the others took a placebo of sunflower oil. After six months, all had lost roughly 5 pounds.

About one-third of those taking CLA actually gained muscle and lost fat, Pariza says. While those taking the sunflower oil regained their weight at a ratio of about 75 percent fat to 25 percent muscle once the study finished, which is typical, those taking CLA who regained weight put on equal proportions of fat to muscle.

"CLA appears to be very helpful in helping people control weight," says Pariza. "It's not going to cause you to lose fat, but once you have achieved the weight loss that you want from a traditional diet, then at that point you could use CLA to control your weight, so you don't gain it all back -- the old yo-yo syndrome."

How does it work?

"In a general sense, what it's doing is keeping little fat cells from getting big," says Pariza, perhaps by blocking certain enzymes that let fat cells swell.

There appeared to be no side effects from the supplement, says Pariza. At the same time, questionnaires done every two weeks during the trial revealed that those taking CLA were less depressed, had fewer stomach problems and could concentrate and sleep better.

Pariza's was not the only study dealing with CLA at the meeting.

Ola Gudmundsen, chief executive officer of Scandinavian Clinical Research AS, presented a study that suggests CLA could help people lose weight overall, primarily by reducing fat mass.

Sixty overweight people who were not allowed to diet were randomly assigned to take either a 9-gram placebo of olive oil or 1.7 grams, 3.4 grams, 5.1 grams or 6.8 grams of CLA daily for 12 weeks. Their body fat composition was measured at the start, middle and end of that time.

"We saw that they had a significant reduction in weight in the CLA group," says Gudmundsen. "It was about 2.2 pounds in 12 weeks."

However, the researchers found that overwhelmingly, this loss was from body fat, and didn't affect overall weight or body mass index. The 3.4-gram dose appeared to be the most effective, safest dose.

And there were some side effects. The supplement, given in oil, produced mild gastrointestinal upset.

The participants were not followed once they stopped taking the supplement; something Gudmundsen believes should be looked at in future studies.