Researchers Tap CLA Market

The movement to ban trans fats is a tidal wave sweeping the nation and the University of Arkansas is riding the surge.
Researchers in the UA’s Department of Food Science developed a soybean oil not only free of the trans fat linked to increased risks for cardiovascular disease, but also rich in conjugated linoleic acid. CLA is touted by some and doubted by others for supposed benefits to body fat percentage and the immune system.
Professor Andrew Proctor and graduate student Vishal Jain devised an innovative enriching process and after boosting the CLA content to 22 percent they were awarded a $275,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in December to create a large-scale operation.
The USDA continues to fund research into both CLA enrichment and its effect on humans. Several USDA and private human studies since 2000 haven’t yet established a definitive correlation between CLA intake and health benefits in humans.
Although Proctor and Jain tested their soy oil by frying potato chips, their goal is to create a product people can consume without raising calorie and saturated fat intake.
“We don’t want to create the idea that eating snack foods is a way to get healthy,” Proctor said.
Proctor and Jain envision their soy oil used in emulsified products like salad oils and dressings. A single serving could provide a day’s worth of CLA, which most research suggests to be around 3.4 grams.
The nutritional supplement industry is a $10 billion business and CLA is now one of the most popular on the market thanks to its perceived safety and health benefits.
But whether CLA does what its manufacturers claim is anything but sure.
Cutting Out the Fat
Trans fatty acids are the “bad” fats produced by the partial hydrogenation of vegetable oil. This process adds hydrogen and changes the molecular structure of the oil in order to extend the shelf life in baked goods, extend the “fry-life” of the oil for making french fries or chicken strips, make the oil less solid and provide a certain kind of texture, also known as “mouth-feel.”
Trans fats also exponentially increase the risk of cardio-vascular disease. A 1 percent to 2 percent increase in trans fat intake can result in a 23 percent higher risk of developing CVD.
CLA occurs naturally in beef and dairy products, but at far too low a level to provide a health benefit. University of Wisconsin professor Michael Pariza found some anti-carcinogenic benefits to CLA in 1978, and promising animal research in the early 1990s led to a boom in its use and marketing from the supplement industry.
Proctor and Jain set out to improve on a simple experiment and now are moving to large-scale production. The design’s proprietary potential makes it a top-secret project with benefits beyond enriching soybean oil.
Jain corrected the major flaw in the process as the focus of his doctoral thesis.
The CLA is brought about by re-arranging the molecular structure of the soybean oil with iodine as a catalyst triggered by ultraviolet light.
The problem at the small-scale stage was the amount of surface area exposed to the light. A light shining directly on the top of the beaker produced a very low yield of CLA.
Jain created a vessel that allowed the light to shine on a greater amount of the oil and produce a greater yield.
“We were surprised with how much we got,” Jain said “But it takes six days to get 22 percent CLA in the soy oil.”
Improving the time is the goal of the large-scale operation soon to be under way. Making sure it isn’t lumped in with unhealthy trans fats is another.
Because of its molecular structure, the enriched soybean oil is technically a “trans” fat. However, the oil is not hydrogenated, meaning it has none of the trans fatty acids banned by cities like New York and Chicago, fast food chains such as Wendy’s, Taco Bell and KFC and food manufacturers like Kraft, makers of the original trans fat target Oreo cookie.
Michael Roberts, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who formerly taught at the UA and has consulted with Proctor on the project, said the CLA-enriched oil should not fall under the Food and Drug Administration’s definition of trans fat required on all food labels as of January 2006.
Market for CLA Grows
Proctor and Jain aren’t the only ones trying to create a CLA-enriched product.
A USDA study released in August 2006 showed grass-fed cattle produced beef 1.5 to 2 times greater CLA in beef and 3 to 4 times greater CLA in milk versus non-grazing animals.
The CLA market has skyrocketed since Norway-based Natural Inc. introduced the first supplement synthesized from safflower oil in 1996.
One nutritional supplement Web site offers 28 different CLA products ranging from $15 to $40.
Claims about CLA include a reduction of body fat, increase in lean body mass, boosting the immune system and reducing the risks of some kinds of cancer as well as arteriosclerosis (clogging of the arteries).
Negative side effects have suggested a resistance to insulin, a fatty liver and a susceptibility to inflammatory diseases.
The promising studies in the early 1990s were performed mostly on rats and mice and used far heavier doses of CLA (relative to body weight) than recommended for human ingestion.
Sales Ahead of Research
No human study has yet established a clear link between CLA use and similar positive effects seen in rodents.
According to a 2001 USDA research report, “Analysis of samples and data from the study showed that CLA supplementation had no beneficial or adverse effects on a number of health parameters, including immune status, cardiovascular health, and body composition.”
Another USDA report from 2006 indicated that supplementing diet with CLA could actually reduce the levels of omega-3 (DHA).
“Since omega-3 fatty acids are known to improve cardiovascular health, the dramatic reduction in heart tissue DHA may have serious health consequences,” the 2006 USDA report concluded.
In any case, the health benefits of CLA aren’t nearly the kind boasted by the UA in its press release announcing the USDA grant, which claimed, “Studies also have shown that humans eating diets rich in CLA reduced body fat and waist size.”
Even the human studies referred to by UA professor Marjorie Finch-Hilgenberg admitted this in conclusion:
“The results of studies in humans indicate that the effect of the [CLA] isomer on body fat is considerably less than that anticipated from mice studies and that [CLA] has no major effect on plasma lipids. Furthermore, mice studies showed that the [CLA] isomer may have some undesirable side effects … and there are indications that some of these effects may become apparent in humans.”
Jerry Foote, another UA nutritionist who has consulted on this project, said he was “too busy” to respond to written questions about the USDA studies via e-mail.
The positive health effect of trans fat free oil and the engineering achievement of Jain’s device cannot be understated, but at the UA, and in labs around the world, the technology of CLA production remains far ahead of the conclusions about its effects.