The prevention and the treatment of obesity have proved to be enormous challenges for health professionals. On their turn, the food and the pharmaceutical industries have been offering an increasingly vast array of new products which are said to promote weight loss. The conjugated linoleic acid, found in greater concentrations in the fat of ruminant mammals, seems to present favorable effects on body weight maintenance. This work reviewed the available data in the literature that related conjugated linoleic acid to energy expenditure and body composition, with the objective of better understanding its real or possible actions in the body, in particular, whether I does or does not promote weight loss. The studies on humans are not conclusive yet, although some of them have suggested an increase of lipolysis, and/or decrease of lipogenesis, which are reflected only on body composition changes, especially on the abdominal adipose tissue, but not on body weight loss. Furthermore, the high doses of conjugated linoleic acid used in these studies may produce undesirable collateral effects. Thus, more studies are necessary before this fat acid can be recommended as an agent to improve body composition and/or as an anti-obesity agent.
linoleic acid; body composition; obesity; weight loss
