CLA Beneficial to Mild Asthma Suffers

VANCOUVER, Canada—Conjugated linoleic acid treatment (CLA; as Tonalin®, from Cognis),  a naturally occurring fatty acid, as an adjunct to usual care in overweight mild asthmatics was well tolerated and was associated with improvements in airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and body mass index (BMI) (Clin Experimenta Allerg. 2010;40;7:1071-78). A prospective, double blind, placebo-controlled study randomized 28 adult subjects (aged 19 to 40 years) with mild asthma 4.5 g/d of CLA or placebo for 12 weeks in addition to usual treatment. On average, subjects were overweight with a mean body mass index (BMI) of 27.9 kg/m2.

Subjects in the CLA group had a significant improvement in AHR at week 12 compared with week zero. The CLA group had a significant reduction in weight and BMI compared with placebo and this was associated with a reduction in leptin/adiponectin ratio. There were no differences in systemic cytokine levels, induced sputum cell counts, quality-of-life scores or adverse events