Jack of all Nutrients: CoQ10

"Jack of all Nutrients": Co-enzyme Q10

CoQ10 has proved helpful in increasing energy, preventing and treating circulatory and heart problems, enhancing weight loss, boosting the immune system, and much more.

At an anti-aging conference, I heard an enthusiastic medical doctor telling a skeptical listener that coenzyme Q10 is helpful in rewing up energy, protecting the soundness of gums and teeth, preventing heart disease, coping with obesity and cancer, bolstering the immune system, and delaying the aging process.

"Is there anything coenzyme Q10 can't do?" asked the skeptic.

"About the only thing it can't do is set a VCR," laughed the speaker.

Exploring the versatility of CoQ10

The versatility CoQ10 is anything but a laughing matter. It is known by most accounts as one of the most incredible supplements on the shelves of health food stores.

Although coenzyme Q10 exists in many foods, thus earning its other name, ubiquinone, much research shows that patients with a vast spectrum of serious medical conditions are frequently CoQ10-deficient.

The harsh fact is this: too many people mainly eat "dead" (processed) foods. Coenzyme Q10 can be synthesized in the body from whole foods rich in tyrosine and phenylalanine (amino acids), vitamin E, folic acid, and vitamins B-1 and B-6, along with its brother and sister coenzymes Q1 through Q9, but not from any single nutrient.

Well, wouldn't people who eat live, fresh, whole foods be able to synthesize enough CoQ10? Some segments of the population would.

However, around middle-age, we begin to lose our ability to synthesize this nutrient from the diet. At this time, and possibly before, is when supplements come in to help.

Vegetarians, and some others, will not find acceptable most of the foods containing coenzyme Q10: beef, muscle and organ meats, including liver, egg yolk, milk fat, codfish, and sardines. However, various whole grains and wheat germ, as well as peanuts and spinach, contain some levels of this nutrient.

When most measures fail to help fatigued or exhausted people, I have determined that many find relief in taking CoQ10. As one of the biochemical fuels most needed to produce desired energy, CoQ10 seems to fire up the mitochondria, the micro-furnaces in our trillions of cells.

Growing in popularity in the United States, CoQ10 is most widely known and used outside of our borders--in Europe and, mainly, in Japan, where nearly 300 different CoQ10 products are sold. Supply can hardly keep up with demand.

CoQ10 prevents G, Nutrientum disease

The Japanese commonly take CoQ10 supplements to manage or prevent swollen gums and deterioration of bone structures supporting teeth, among other uses. Edward G. Wilkinson, D.D.S., a periodontal specialist with the United States Air Force, investigated indepth causes of serious gum diseases, and invariably found a serious deficiency in coenzyme Q10. By supplementing patients' diets with this nutrient, he was able to reverse gum disease which threatened each of them with a loss of all their teeth -- conditions considered hopeless by other dental specialists.

A frightening statistic tells us that 30 million Americans have such an advanced state of gum disease that they will lose all their teeth unless they get immediate periodontal treatment. Another reveals that 60 percent of young people suffer periodontal problems, as well as 90 percent of seniors over 65.

Heart health relies on CoQ10

Probably the most exciting use of CoQ10 is for the prevention and treatment of many types of heart and artery disorders--high blood pressure, deficient heart energy, and low-oxygen conditions threatening the integrity of heart tissue. When blood delivery is reduced because of clogged arteries or during a heart attack, CoQ10 helps. In addition, it can contribute to reducing the pain of angina and in regularizing irregular heartbeat.

Patients with congestive heart failure appear to derive great benefit from CoQ10 supplementation. Twelve such patients who failed to improve on digitalis and diuretics, traditional drugs for such a condition, showed notable improvement on 100 mg daily of CoQ10 for one month.

Until recently, the only hope for most cardiomyopathy patients was heart transplant, a hazardous and costly procedure. (This condition is characterized by exaggerated thickening of the heart muscle and obstructive damage to the heart.) Then cardiologist Per H. Langsjoen, M.D., of the Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas, had advanced cardiomyopathy patients try 100 mg of CoQ10 daily for 12 weeks, he noted "a remarkable clinical improvement."

In his double-blind, cross-over study of 19 patients, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Langsjoen reported increased volume of blood pumped, improved heart strength, and diminished shortness of breath --all with no side effects. These benefits continued for three years.

CoQ10 normalizes blood pressure

In animal studies, CoQ10 has also been found to normalize high blood pressure; these results were verified in human studies. A Japanese researcher Toru Yamagami fed 25 patients suffering with hypertension 60 mg of CoQ10 daily for eight weeks. All participants showed a significant decrease in blood pressure. The average drop in pressure was greater than 10 percent.

A similar study by Yamagami and Karl Folkers, of the University of Texas--the latter a pioneer researcher in CoQ10--showed that hypertensive patients recorded a noteworthy drop in blood pressure after a daily intake of 35 to 45 mg of this supplement for several weeks. Many of them registered declines in pressure to normal levels.

CoQ10 protects the muscles of the heart

Animal studies show positive results after supplementation with CoQ10. In cases of myocardial infarction--death of heart tissues due to obstructed blood circulation --damaged areas were reduced in size. The myocardium--the middle muscular layer of the heart--was protected against insufficient blood flow.

"A deficiency of CoQ10 is common in cardiac patients," states The Nutrition Superbook: The Antioxidants. "When it was looked for, myocardial biopsies done on patients with various cardiac diseases showed that there was a deficiency of the coenzyme in 50 to 75 percent of the patients studied."

Weight loss enhanced with CoQ10

In addition to its hopeful, beneficial effects on cardiovascular ailments, CoQ10 has been shown to contribute to weight loss through firing up the cell mitochondria (micro-furnaces) and, therefore, increasing the burning off of accumulated fat.

Dr. Luc Van Gaal and colleagues noted in a paper, "The Exploratory Study of Coenzyme Q10 in Obesity," their results of a study of two groups of obese volunteers on the same controlled reducing diet. The only difference was that one group received 100 mg of CoQ10 daily over nine weeks, while the other group did not. Those on CoQ10 lost 30 pounds compared with l pounds for the other group.

Other benefits of this nutrient

One of the questions often asked about CoQ10 is: "It seems to help many medical conditions, but is useful for treating cancers?" Animal studies indicate that it increases resistance to virally and chemically-caused cancers by stimulating the metabolic activity in the immune system.

Dr. Emile Bliznakov, scientific director of the Lupus Research Institute in Ridgefield, Conn., discovered that CoQ10 doubles the immune system's antibody level against bacterial organisms and also offers a higher level of resistance to viruses.

Likewise, in animal experiments Bliznikov found that CoQ10 significantly increased their life span--by some 56 percent in some in stances--and, equally meaningful the animals looked and acted younger and more energetic.

Further, studies of CoQ10-deficient animals exhibited a marked deterioration of their immune system, contributing to a shorter life. One of Bliznikov's animal studies revealed that the amount of CoQ10 declines by as much as 80 percent over the course of normal aging.

The Nutrition Superbook: The Antioxidants comments on this finding

"A decline of this magnitude in a human being would be fatal, but deficiencies approaching this have been observed in aged humans and are associated with grave heart disease."

REFERENCES:

Barilla, Jean, ed. The Nutrition Superbook: The Antioxidants. New Canaan, Conn.: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1995.

COPYRIGHT 1996 PRIMEDIA Intertec, a PRIMEDIA Company. All Rights Reserved. 

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

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