Health Benefits of CoQ10
Numerous investigators have established the normal blood levels of CoQ10. Significantly reduced amounts have been noted in cancer, heart disease and fatigue.
Heart Disease
Heart muscles, comprising perhaps the most important muscle in the body; contain the largest number of mitochondria. Investigators in the early 1980’s began trials in which patients took CoQ10 supplements. By the early 1980s cardiologists Peter Langsjoen, M.D., of Tyler, Texas, and his colleagues had started using CoQ10 to treat patients with
Early on Japanese doctors who treated patients with cardiomyopathy and heart failure (diseases caused not by cholesterol, but by a loss of energy in the heart) found that CoQ10 supplements helped bring back normal heart function in many of the patients.
In one of the largest international studies namely the Italian Multi-Centre Trial by Baggio and Associates, which involved 2,664 patients with heart failure, nearly 80 percent of the patients improved after taking the compound (50 to 150mg of standard CoQ10 (Ubiquinone) daily for three months) and 54 percent had major improvements in the symptoms. This was a landmark study and showed how nutritional medicine could work wonders.
CoQ10 should be used in support with the traditional medical treatment. According to experts, in case of heart failure, patients should be supplemented with CoQ10 over long term. If discontinued the needed fuel source becomes depleted again and heart function slowly decreases back to its previous level. According to research supplementation with 300 mg daily can significantly improve a weak heart’s ability to pump blood.
Fatigue
CoQ10 can also boost energy levels and reduces fatigue.
According to Dr. Langsjoen 16 patients (80 to 88 years old) who took an average of 220 mg of CoQ10 daily for three months felt better and had less fatigue after physical exertion. The benefits lasted as long as the patients took the supplements and the patients’ heart function improved as well.
A study, conducted at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, found that both trained and untrained men and women had greater endurance after taking 200 mg of CoQ10 for two weeks.
Neurological Diseases
Brain cells require large amounts of energy, and CoQ10 can benefit some neurological disorders.
A study conducted at a few U.S. hospitals revealed that CoQ10 supplements reduced the symptoms and slowed the progression of Parkinson’s disease. The protocol included eighty patients being given 300, 600 or 1,200 mg of CoQ10 or placebos daily for sixteen weeks. All the patients taking CoQ10 had less severe symptoms than those in the placebo group. The highest dose provided the greatest benefits.
Breast Cancer and Other Cancers
In the 1990s, Danish surgeon Knud Lockwood, M.D., reported patient case histories in which post the supplementation of CoQ10 (almost 400 mg daily) there was inhibition of metastases (the spread of a disease to other parts of the body) in recurrent breast cancers. According to him CoQ10 did not have direct anti-tumor properties, but it probably helped energize the body’s anti-cancer immune cells.
In 2009, Danish physician Niels Hertz, M.D., reported the results of 41 cancer patients who took 300 mg of CoQ10 and several other supplements in addition to the conventional therapies. Three-fourths of the patients lived an average of five months longer than expected and in many cases, patients lived two years longer than expected.
