That's one way to describe the intriguing experiments on conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a compound found in many animal fats.
Before we get to the details, let's do the ol' Why Files why?Why should I care about this stuff?
Because CLA is a natural nutrient that seems to enhance the immune system, prevent cancer, and burn fat. In animal tests, it has few side effects.
And as the New England Journal of Medicine reported last year, obesity affects 58 million Americans. It contributes to 300,000 annual deaths caused by heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and some cancers.
OK, I'm convinced. First tell me how they learned about CLA -- then tell me if it's a for-real fat-fighter-- or too good to be true.
Ironically, when Michael Pariza, a University of Wisconsin-Madison food scientist, isolated CLA in 1987, he was looking for a chemical in burned (and raw) hamburger that seemed to prevent cancer in lab animals.
Then, in 1990, Pariza met a colleague, animal scientist Mark Cook, while running (we didn't make this up). 
Cook had been thinking about the immune system, so he asked Pariza how CLA interacted with the system that fights invading microbes. Specifically, Cook wondered whether CLA might affect the weight loss caused by vaccination. (After a flu shot, kids can lose 3 percent of their body weight, Cook says. Want to see a Why Files staffer getting a flu shot?)
As Cook and Pariza began collaborating, they noticed that the CLA reduced this immune-induced loss of weight -- a finding that could save as much as a billion dollars for the meat industry, which doesn't like animals slimming down after getting vaccinated. At the same time, Cook found that CLA also "jacked the immune system way up."
I thought this Why File was about fat. You haven't mentioned it...
We're getting there. Then the students caring for the lab animals noticed that although they were growing faster than normal, they were eating less than usual. On investigation, Cook and Pariza's team found that a diet containing 0.5 percent CLA reduced body fat in mice and other lab animals by 50 to 75 percent. And it seemed to increase the amount of muscle.
In the public mind, if fighting cancer is a solid double, fighting flab is a bases-loaded homer. So after the results were announced, Cook says, "Pandora's box started to open up." It didn't hurt that researchers soon added the prevention of atherosclerosis -- hardening of the arteries -- to the list of CLA's purported benefits.
In terms of obesity, CLA seems to have two related actions. It interferes with an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase that the body uses to move fat from the blood into fat cells -- to make fat cells fatter. And it enhances the enzyme hormone sensitive lipase, which breaks down fat already stored in fat cells, so muscles can burn it. That makes fat cells "thinner."
Not bad so far. Where do you get CLA? Yes, you can take a shortcut and gobble capsules. But it's already present in beef, veal and lamb, and most cheeses and other dairy products.
