diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/LDAOptimizer.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/LDAOptimizer.scala
index 8e5154b902..b960ae6c07 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/LDAOptimizer.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/clustering/LDAOptimizer.scala
@@ -19,15 +19,15 @@ package org.apache.spark.mllib.clustering
 
 import java.util.Random
 
-import breeze.linalg.{DenseVector => BDV, DenseMatrix => BDM, sum, normalize, kron}
-import breeze.numerics.{digamma, exp, abs}
+import breeze.linalg.{DenseMatrix => BDM, DenseVector => BDV, normalize, sum}
+import breeze.numerics.{abs, digamma, exp}
 import breeze.stats.distributions.{Gamma, RandBasis}
 
 import org.apache.spark.annotation.DeveloperApi
 import org.apache.spark.graphx._
 import org.apache.spark.graphx.impl.GraphImpl
 import org.apache.spark.mllib.impl.PeriodicGraphCheckpointer
-import org.apache.spark.mllib.linalg.{Matrices, SparseVector, DenseVector, Vector}
+import org.apache.spark.mllib.linalg.{DenseVector, Matrices, SparseVector, Vector}
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 
 /**
@@ -370,7 +370,7 @@ final class OnlineLDAOptimizer extends LDAOptimizer {
     iteration += 1
     val k = this.k
     val vocabSize = this.vocabSize
-    val Elogbeta = dirichletExpectation(lambda)
+    val Elogbeta = dirichletExpectation(lambda).t
     val expElogbeta = exp(Elogbeta)
     val alpha = this.alpha
     val gammaShape = this.gammaShape
@@ -385,41 +385,36 @@ final class OnlineLDAOptimizer extends LDAOptimizer {
           case v => throw new IllegalArgumentException("Online LDA does not support vector type "
             + v.getClass)
         }
+        if (!ids.isEmpty) {
 
-        // Initialize the variational distribution q(theta|gamma) for the mini-batch
-        var gammad = new Gamma(gammaShape, 1.0 / gammaShape).samplesVector(k).t // 1 * K
-        var Elogthetad = digamma(gammad) - digamma(sum(gammad))     // 1 * K
-        var expElogthetad = exp(Elogthetad)                         // 1 * K
-        val expElogbetad = expElogbeta(::, ids).toDenseMatrix       // K * ids
+          // Initialize the variational distribution q(theta|gamma) for the mini-batch
+          val gammad: BDV[Double] =
+            new Gamma(gammaShape, 1.0 / gammaShape).samplesVector(k) // K
+          val expElogthetad: BDV[Double] = exp(digamma(gammad) - digamma(sum(gammad))) // K
+          val expElogbetad: BDM[Double] = expElogbeta(ids, ::).toDenseMatrix // ids * K
 
-        var phinorm = expElogthetad * expElogbetad + 1e-100         // 1 * ids
-        var meanchange = 1D
-        val ctsVector = new BDV[Double](cts).t                      // 1 * ids
+          val phinorm: BDV[Double] = expElogbetad * expElogthetad :+ 1e-100 // ids
+          var meanchange = 1D
+          val ctsVector = new BDV[Double](cts) // ids
 
-        // Iterate between gamma and phi until convergence
-        while (meanchange > 1e-3) {
-          val lastgamma = gammad
-          //        1*K                  1 * ids               ids * k
-          gammad = (expElogthetad :* ((ctsVector / phinorm) * expElogbetad.t)) + alpha
-          Elogthetad = digamma(gammad) - digamma(sum(gammad))
-          expElogthetad = exp(Elogthetad)
-          phinorm = expElogthetad * expElogbetad + 1e-100
-          meanchange = sum(abs(gammad - lastgamma)) / k
-        }
+          // Iterate between gamma and phi until convergence
+          while (meanchange > 1e-3) {
+            val lastgamma = gammad.copy
+            //        K                  K * ids               ids
+            gammad := (expElogthetad :* (expElogbetad.t * (ctsVector :/ phinorm))) :+ alpha
+            expElogthetad := exp(digamma(gammad) - digamma(sum(gammad)))
+            phinorm := expElogbetad * expElogthetad :+ 1e-100
+            meanchange = sum(abs(gammad - lastgamma)) / k
+          }
 
-        val m1 = expElogthetad.t
-        val m2 = (ctsVector / phinorm).t.toDenseVector
-        var i = 0
-        while (i < ids.size) {
-          stat(::, ids(i)) := stat(::, ids(i)) + m1 * m2(i)
-          i += 1
+          stat(::, ids) := expElogthetad.asDenseMatrix.t * (ctsVector :/ phinorm).asDenseMatrix
         }
       }
       Iterator(stat)
     }
 
     val statsSum: BDM[Double] = stats.reduce(_ += _)
-    val batchResult = statsSum :* expElogbeta
+    val batchResult = statsSum :* expElogbeta.t
 
     // Note that this is an optimization to avoid batch.count
     update(batchResult, iteration, (miniBatchFraction * corpusSize).ceil.toInt)