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Coenzyme Q10: The Anti-Oxidant In Every Cell
In human beings, coenzyme
Q10 is the most common occurring form of coenzyme Q, needed by and found in
every cell in the body. Perhaps its
primary function is to ensure the production of adequate energy within the cell
mitochondria, but coenzyme Q10 is also a powerful anti-oxidant, and is
particularly important because it is the only fat-soluble anti-oxidant which
can be manufactured within the body.
Like other fat-soluble anti-oxidants, such as vitamin E, coenxyme Q10 is vital for the protection of fatty structures
within cells from the damage and degeneration which may be caused by oxidative
reactions and free radical activity.
But the anti-oxidant role
of coenzyme Q10 doesn’t end there.
It’s also important in stimulating the anti-oxidant activity of
vitamin E, and the two nutrients are together
vital for preventing the oxidation of Low Density Lipids (LDLs), the blood fats better known as “bad
cholesterol”, widely recognised as one of the key risk factors for heart
disease, still the major cause of premature death in the Western world.
Blood levels of coenzyme
Q10 are lower than those of the other vital anti-oxidants, vitamins C and E,
but the nutrient is found in greater concentrations both in muscles and the
major organs of the body; the liver, kidneys, brain and especially the
heart. But the extent to which levels of
coenzyme Q10 within this organ are correlated with disease remains a matter of
dispute. Orthodox medicine is
predictably cautious and maintains that more research is required before any
definitive statement of coenzyme Q10’s benefits can be made.
Nutritional therapists,
however, argue that patients with heart disease have consistently been shown to
have substantially lower levels of coenzyme Q10 in their hearts than their
healthy counterparts. It is also clear
that supplementation with coenzyme Q10 has been effective in increasing tissue
concentrations of the nutrients in such patients. Logically enough, conclude the nutritional
practitioners, it follows that supplementation should improve outcomes for
heart patients, and some reported research with daily doses of 100mg does
indeed suggest significant benefits, particularly where problems seem to lie in
the heart muscle itself.
It is particularly
important to note that levels of coenzyme Q10 in the hearts of older individual
are significantly lower than those of younger people, as the body’s
production of the nutrient declines markedly from around the age of forty. Experiments on older rats have shown that
supplementation with coenzyme Q10 can significantly increase concentrations,
with improved heart protection in consequence, but conventional medicine still
declines to accept the obvious analogy with regard to human health.
Likewise, there is
controversy surrounding the potential benefits of the anti-oxidant activity of
coenzyme Q10 in preventing atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, a
major precursor of deadly heart disease.
What is clear, however, is that coenzyme Q10 is effective in reducing
the oxidation of dangerous LDL cholesterol, which is a known risk factor for
the development of atherosclerosis. It
should perhaps be no surprise, therefore, that coenzyme Q10 supplements have
been shown to retard the development of this condition in small animal
experiments. But whilst admitting that
these results are encouraging and exciting, orthodox medical opinion continues
to insist that more research is necessary before a definitive statement of the
benefits of coenzyme Q10 for human health can be made. To the interested layman, however, there seems little
reason to suppose that the results of the animal experiments would not also be
reflected in humans. And certainly this
is the conclusion which many nutritional practitioners have reached; regularly
recommending doses of anything up to 400 mg of coenzyme Q10 a day.
The case for
supplementation with coenzyme Q10 for sufferers from atherosclerosis and other
heart conditions has been strengthened by recent research showing that one of
the side effects of the popular statin drugs commonly
prescribed in these circumstances is to reduce blood levels of coenzyme
Q10. Conventional medicine does not
accept that this reduction will necessarily have adverse consequences, but if
it is accepted that coenzyme Q10 has the benefits detailed above, the
conclusion seems clear enough. This is
not of course to suggest that statin drugs should not
be taken, but that it may well be wise to supplement with coenzyme Q10 at the
same time.
As noted above, the other
major factor reducing concentrations of coenzyme Q10 in blood and tissue is
simply the ageing of the organism itself, as the body’s ability to
synthesise coenzyme Q10 declines dramatically in the later years of life. Given the importance of the nutrient as an
anti-oxidant, this is of particular concern in the context of the onset of
degenerative diseases. It seems that
coenzyme Q10’s fundamental role in the production of energy may make it
important as a fat burner, thereby helping in the battle against obesity and
related conditions such as diabetes.
Nutritional practitioners
even claim that the anti-oxidant and energy producing qualities of coenzyme Q10
make supplementation with the nutrient an important weapon in the fight against
cancer, perhaps the ultimate degenerative disease.
But like all the
body’s nutrients, coenzyme Q10 functions best in the presence of adequate
amounts of all the others; and it is particularly important to ensure, through
supplementation if necessary an abundant supply of the other vital anti-oxidants,
vitamins C and E.
Steve
Smith
