Article ID # 20060203
Super Q
by Patrick Dougherty
Energy Times, February 3, 2006

An ailing heart need not fear-CoQ10 is here! Follow the exploits of this super nutrient as it takes on the evil cardio trio of energy loss, cholesterol and inflammation!

The League of Vitamin Superheroes formed to fight criminal pathogens and uphold health justice within the body. Each vitamin superhero, given a secret code name and snazzy costume, was deployed to fulfill its own special health-supporting mission. But one superhero shunned this league and vowed to fight disease as a lone renegade. Dressed in blue with a bold red "Q," our hero set off to support health in many ways. Its secret mission: to protect the heart with all its might. Is this superhero a drug? No. Is it a vitamin? No! It's...SUPER Q! CoQ10 is also known by the aliases coenzyme Q10 and ubiquinone, and as the latter signifies, CoQ10 is ubiquitous, present in nearly every cell in the body. This pervasiveness contributes to CoQ10's impressive list of benefits. Dr. Gary Gordon, author of The Omega 3 Miracle (Freedom Press), enthusiastically proclaims: "There isn't any condition that we would call an acute infection, chronic infection or degenerative condition that CoQ10 doesn't help." CoQ10 has been shown to benefit sufferers of HIV/AIDS, Huntington's disease, migraine headaches, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's disease, periodontal disease and more. Most famously, CoQ10 has demonstrated benefits in treating and preventing cardiovascular diseases and conditions, including congestive heart failure, angina (heart pain caused by blocked blood vessels), atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries caused by cholesterol deposits) and high blood pressure. Research verifies that Super Q helps the heart. In one 1994 study led by cardiologist and researcher Dr. Peter Langsjoen, 424 patients with six types of cardiac disease treated with CoQ10 experienced improved heart function, better quality of life and decreased reliance on drugs. A 1998 study published in Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy found that CoQ10 helps patients suffering heart attacks. In this study, pain was alleviated, left ventricle function (which sends blood throughout the body) was enhanced and arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats) reduced in the people who got CoQ10, compared with those who received placebos. In addition, the CoQ10 group experienced significantly fewer cardiac failure deaths and nonfatal heart attacks. In the Italian Multicenter Study, the largest CoQ10 study to date, nearly 2,500 heart failure patients were given 50 to 150 mg CoQ10 daily for three months. A remarkable 80% of the patients enjoyed some type of improvement. Overall, around 40 well-designed studies show that CoQ10 has tremendous potential as a complementary cardiovascular treatment, with no apparent side effects or toxicity. What accounts for CoQ10's cardio superpowers? The explanation lies in three main areas: energy production, antioxidant activity and immune system support.

Super Q Energy...Activate!
Clinical nutritionist Dr. Hemmi Bhagavan can also attest to CoQ10's myriad health benefits. For one thing, it is essential for cellular energy production. "The fundamental role of CoQ10 is in cellular bioenergetics," Bhagavan explains. "It plays a critical role in the production of cellular energy in the mitochondria [cellular power plants] within each and every cell in the body." What is bioenergetics? Simply put, it involves the flow and transformation of energy in and between living things. With its crucial role in bioenergetics, CoQ10 is concentrated in the hardest-working organ in the body: the heart. Beating 100,000 times per day, this muscular pump requires tremendous amounts of energy to function. Without enough CoQ10, the heart doesn't have the energy it needs to work properly. Bad bioenergetics means big trouble for the heart: "An energy deficit compromises heart function and it is unable to pump blood efficiently," says Bhagavan. Because of the links among CoQ10's energy production, the heart's energy demands and high heart concentrations of CoQ10, scientists believe that too little Super Q may contribute to a variety of heart conditions, a belief supported by the deficiencies often found in heart disease patients. "There is evidence to show that in cardiomyopathic hearts (those showing muscle damage), for instance, CoQ10 content of biopsy samples is indeed reduced," says Bhagavan. "This is the rationale for the potential beneficial effect of CoQ10 in heart disease." Gordon adds: "If you take a patient who is in heart failure, CoQ10 will increase the cardiac output or the efficiency with which the heart is able to beat."

Super Q Versus Free Radicals
CoQ10 is a valuable antioxidant, protecting the body against free-radical damage. As we age, our CoQ10 levels diminish. This gradual weakening of CoQ10 antioxidant defenses, coupled with increased free radical levels caused by environmental factors like stress, toxins, pollution and poor diet, poses a double-pronged health threat. "Across the board, we have an increased need for CoQ10, especially considering the high toxicity of the average person," Gordon explains. "You don't have just nutritional deficiency from a high-fat, high-junk diet...you have increased need for CoQ10 because you have more free radicals due to stress and pollution." When it comes to heart health, CoQ10 offers specialized protection against oxidation of LDL, or bad cholesterol. That's important because it is oxidized LDL that forms into artery-clogging plaque and threatens heart health. CoQ10's ability to prevent this has a significant bearing on overall cardiovascular health. And Super Q is glad to help out the League of Vitamin Superheroes. "CoQ10 can recycle and regenerate other antioxidants, such as vitamin C and vitamin E, thus potentiating the overall antioxidant protection," says Bhagavan. Notably, the wide-reaching benefits of vitamin C and vitamin E also apply to cardiovascular health-further elevating CoQ10's value as a heart hero.

Super Q's Boon to Immune
CoQ10 is a highly regarded immune system booster, which explains its positive effects on AIDS and cancer patients, and may also account for part of its cardiovascular benefits. Increasingly experts cite inflammation, an immune system function that can go out of control, as a major contributor to cardiovascular disease. Gordon says that inflammation's impact on cardiovascular disease is "so dramatic that you can take somebody who thinks they need bypass surgery, and aggressively treat the inflammation, the pain goes away and the patient is suddenly no longer an emergency candidate for surgery." "Much of inflammation is really related to things like infections," he continues. "As CoQ10 increases the body's immune system functioning, it lowers the total body burden of pathogens, which are directly related to when you have your final heart attack." CoQ10 boosts the immune system to better neutralize inflammatory pathogens, thereby fighting cardiovascular disease from another angle.

Super Q Kryptonite
"There is reasonable evidence at this time to consider CoQ10 as an adjunct to standard therapy in heart patients," says Bhagavan. In fact, Japanese doctors have been prescribing Super Q for people with heart problems as part of standard cardiac care since 1974. Actually, CoQ10 would be a sensible complement to the popular cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, which significantly deplete CoQ10 levels. This depletion is so serious that some experts question whether statin drugs' benefits outweigh the CoQ10 depletion risks. The simple solution would be to include CoQ10 in statin drug formulations. But combining CoQ10 with statin drugs creates a political snafu that is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile. "The pharmaceutical companies hate to give any credibility at all to what we call 'nutritional cardiology,'" Gordon opines. "If they put CoQ10 in [statin drugs], then they are admitting that they haven't included it for so many years. They are in a no-win position." Though our bodies synthesize CoQ10, it may not be enough-especially since CoQ10 levels decline with age. To get CoQ10 from diet alone, you'd need some superhero stomach powers, as the best CoQ10 source is organ meats (yuck!). CoQ10 supplementation is the answer. A daily dosage of 100 to 200 mg is a standard regimen, depending on considerations such as personal or family heart disease history, but greater dosages pose no risk. When purchasing CoQ10, seek natural, not synthetic, products. Super Q is always ready to valiantly fight for your health. With its diverse health benefits-including its crucial role in cardiovascular well-being-CoQ10 has become a true nutrient superhero.

Additional Articles