LA vs CLA - What’s Really Essential?
Before seed oils flooded our diet, humans thrived on fats rich in CLA—conjugated linoleic acid—from pasture-raised animals, dairy, and bone marrow.
We weren’t always top predators. For most of our evolution, we weren’t the strongest hunters. We were scavengers—opportunists who cracked open bones left behind by lions and hyenas to get to the rich, fatty marrow inside.
For hundreds of thousands of years, marrow was one of our most reliable and nutrient-dense food sources. Our metabolism adapted to it—not to skim milk or canola oil. We evolved to thrive on the fats in marrow and other scraps from wild animals, especially the CLA and other bioavailable fats.
What is CLA—and why does it matter?
CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) is a unique fatty acid found in the meat and fat of ruminant animals (like cows, bison, deer, sheep), especially those that eat grass. It’s abundant in bone marrow, tallow, grass-fed butter, and fat from pasture-raised animals.
But CLA isn’t just another fat—it behaves differently in the body. Research shows CLA can:
Increase lean muscle mass
Enhance fat burning and improve body composition
Reduce insulin resistance
Support mitochondrial function
Lower inflammation
Protect against cancer and cardiovascular disease in animal studies
This is the kind of fat our ancestors consumed for hundreds of thousands of years—and the kind modern humans are critically missing.
Bone Marrow: The OG Superfood
Bone marrow isn’t just a survival food. It’s metabolically intelligent.
Marrow fat is rich in CLA, saturated fat, cholesterol, and fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K2—all crucial for hormone health, immune function, cellular energy production, and strong bones. It's calorie-dense and bioavailable, meaning your body can absorb and use it without needing complex conversions.
It’s no coincidence that traditional diets across the globe—from the Inuit to the Maasai— consider marrow as a sacred food.
Linoleic Acid (LA): The “Essential” Fat That Might Not Be
You’ve probably heard that linoleic acid (LA)—a polyunsaturated omega-6 fat—is “essential.” But what if that claim is based on flawed science?
Back in the 1920s and 30s, scientists studying rats noticed that animals fed fat-free diets developed growth problems, dry skin, infertility, and eventually died. When they added corn oil (high in LA), the rats improved. The conclusion? LA must be essential.
But here’s the twist:
Those rats weren’t just deficient in linoleic acid. They were starved of all natural animal fats, especially CLA, saturated fat, cholesterol, and fat-soluble vitamins. Later experiments showed that when animals received animal fat sources instead of seed oils, they thrived—even without added LA.
So what they were seeing wasn’t a deficiency of LA—it was a deficiency in biologically appropriate, species-appropriate fat.
But Isn’t LA Essential?
Technically, humans can’t make linoleic acid (LA) from scratch, which is why it got labeled “essential.” But here’s what’s rarely mentioned:
LA is found in all animal foods in small, tightly regulated amounts
Many indigenous populations with exceptional metabolic and reproductive health eat no seed oils or concentrated LA sources
The human body has built-in systems to limit LA metabolism, suggesting that excess is harmful—not helpful
When we eat preformed arachidonic acid (ARA) and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) from animal fats, we bypass the need for LA entirely—since LA’s only real “job” is to be converted into those downstream fats
In reality, we’ve gone from consuming small, trace amounts of LA in wild animal fat to 20x higher levels today, thanks to industrial seed oils (corn, soybean, sunflower, canola). These oils are cheap to produce and have long shelf lives, making them ideal for mass manufacturing—not human biology.
Modern diets contain up to 20% of calories from LA, flooding our cells with unstable, oxidizable fat that:
Promotes inflammation
Inhibits mitochondrial energy production
Disrupts hormone balance
Contributes to insulin resistance, obesity, and chronic disease
So why does mainstream science still call LA essential?
Because seed oils are convenient and cheap to produce.
What Happens When We Ditch CLA for LA?
Let’s compare.
CLA (conjugated linoleic acid):
✅ Supports fat loss and lean mass
✅ Improves insulin sensitivity
✅ Fights inflammation
✅ Protects mitochondria
✅ Found in animal fat, marrow, grass-fed dairy
LA (linoleic acid):
❌ Promotes fat storage
❌ Increases inflammation
❌ Disrupts mitochondrial function
❌ Found in seed oils and processed foods
Want Better Metabolic Health?
Modern metabolic dysfunction—from obesity and diabetes to chronic fatigue and hormone imbalance—isn’t just about “too many calories” or “too little exercise.” It’s about what we’re made of.
Your mitochondria—your cellular engines—need the right raw materials to produce energy: B vitamins, magnesium, copper, carnitine, CoQ10, and... the right fats. Fats like CLA.
Replacing seed oils with real animal fat—can restore the balance, lower inflammation, and fire up the metabolism.
Eat marrow - not margarine.
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