Effects of dietary conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) on spontaneously hypertensive rats

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) has a number of beneficial biological effects, including reducing cancer incidence and development, reducing severity of atherosclerosis, modulating immune responses, reducing body fat, and enhancing lean mass. Recently CLA has been reported to have a beneficial effect on blood pressure. Thus the effects of CLA supplementation on blood pressure and its associated adverse health effects using spontaneously hypertensive rats were investigated. Results indicated that CLA had no effect on blood pressure in this animal model. However, feeding CLA significantly reduced the incidence and number of animals with stroke-like symptoms. Although the reason CLA reduced stroke-like symptoms is not clear at this moment, there is great potential that CLA may be useful in reducing stroke incidence in humans.