CLA + CARNITINE. Do they really work?

drmohamedrafiq

I went to nutrition store and the salesperson told me to take CLA+CARNITINE for fat loss and to improve lean muslce. Need some guidance regarding the benefit and disadvantage. Do these product really work?. Have anyone of you used it and found some difference?

Kalex1975

The first place I look when I have a question about a supplement is Examine.com. They provide excellent summaries of most supplements. For CLA...

CLA has been investigated to be a fat burner and health promoting agent due to its effect on a molecular signalling receptor family named PPAR which is related to fat burning, steroid signalling, inflammation, and glucose/lipid metabolism.

However, human studies on CLA are very unreliable and the overall effects seen with CLA are not overly potent as well as sometimes contradicting. CLA is a good research standard to investigated fatty acids and the PPAR system, but its usage as a supplement for personal goals is quite lacklustre.

https://examine.com/supplements/conjugated-linoleic-acid/

For Carnitine...

Theoretically, ALCAR supplementation for fat burning should work well, but studies on ALCAR in isolation do not show very good results. Fat loss is typically attributed to the increased activity done by people, from the increased energy they have from ALCAR supplementation.

https://examine.com/supplements/l-carnitine/

So, for fat loss? Not so much...

steveko89

Per Examine.com, CLA has no observed effect on increasing fat loss, studies showing a minor impact to retaining lean muscle mass in obese individuals during weight loss and minor impact to increasing triglycerides.
https://examine.com/supplements/conjugated-linoleic-acid/

For L-Carnitine, there is even more research done on a variety of topics. Specifically for fat loss, there have been minor positive impacts observed for elderly individuals but no notable effects on younger, otherwise healthy individuals in limited studies.
https://examine.com/supplements/l-carnitine/

Studies aside, by definition the salesperson at the store has a job to sell you stuff, regardless of whether it works or not. Pretty sure I've tried both at some point before I really started digging into the legitimacy of the "effects" but can't say for sure, hard to keep track at this point. Ultimately, I wouldn't bother but I'd encourage you to check out the links to read and decide for yourself. Examine is worth bookmarking too, I've yet to find something I was investigating that they didn't show results for.

pinggolfer96

No
Calorie deficits work

TrishSeren

Let me just pop this here.

psuLemon

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10637410/beneficial-supplements-which-ones-are-right-for-you/p1

Going to add this