Coenzyme Q10 was the first anti-aging superstar nutrient, hitting the consumer market in the 1970s. Q10's promise to turn back the clock on aging cells set the stage for many of the modern day anti-aging approaches based on nutritional science.

Over the years Q10 has been put to extensive scientific testing for a variety of purposes. It has amassed 30 years of solid research in the field of cardiovascular health, and is supportive in such areas as blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, arterial health, and heart health. My article, Coenzyme Q10, Statins, and Heart Health goes into greater detail on the cardiovascular topic.

More recently, Q10 has demonstrated a significant ability to help nerves and muscles. New science shows that in addition to its antioxidant role, Q10 also helps stabilize the key gene signal underlying inflammation, NF-kappaB. Collectively, these benefits will assist overall metabolism, including weight loss efforts.

This article summarizes Q10's importance to your health, as well as brings you up to date on recent findings.

Q10 – Crucial for Energy Production

Within every cell are cellular engines called mitochondria. Your nerves, muscles, heart, liver, and immune system all need large amounts of energy to perform their healthy functions, and so have a lot of mitochondria.

Your cell engines combine fuel (calories) with oxygen, and then use various nutrients in a multistep process to produce cellular energy, known as ATP. Many nutrients assist in this function, including B vitamins, krebs cycle cofactors, magnesium, lipoic acid, acetyl-l-carnitine, and Q10.

Thus, Q10 is part of your energy-producing team. It plays a very important role in the final steps of energy production, and cannot be replaced or compensated for by any other nutrient. If you have an adequate amount you make energy at a more optimal rate. If you are lacking you simply cannot make energy at the optimal rate and instead will make free radicals in direct proportion to the lack of Q10.

Since energy is fundamental to everything else, a lack of Q10 contributes to the aging process in all systems in your body, especially internal cellular health and those body systems that rely heavily on energy production (heart, liver, brain, and muscles).

Q10 itself can be synthesized in your body from the amino acid tyrosine. Its formation requires eight nutrients: tetrahydrobiopterin, vitamins B6, C, B2, B12, folic acid, niacin, and pantothenic acid. Plants contain no Q10. Animal meats do have Q10 with the highest amounts found in red meat.

The need for Q10 rises dramatically under the influence of stress. If you maintain a better state of natural balance, then you will need less Q10. As your stress level rises Q10 is used up faster. If a deficiency persists then free radical production can accelerate, which further aggravates the lack of Q10. This is a nasty problem commonly experienced by individuals with fatigue and a trend of worsening health.

Common Q10 doses are in the 100 mg - 300 mg range for general health. More advanced health problems respond better to doses in the 600 mg - 1,200 mg range. Look for a dose that noticeably boosts your energy, mood, and stress tolerance – that dose will vary depending on how you are doing and how your life is going.

Q10 as an Antioxidant

Antioxidants are your body’s natural defense system against free radicals. Your cells need a certain amount of antioxidants on hand simply to cope with the number of free radicals that are produced during normal energy production.

Q10 is part of your antioxidant team. When it helps make energy more efficiently it helps reduce free radical production caused by inefficient energy production. Since Q10 is fat soluble it is also known to accumulate in your cell membranes and protect the important fatty structures of your cells from free radical damage.

Q10 also helps recycle and recharge vitamin E and vitamin C so that they can continue to work as antioxidants. It is very clear that antioxidants work best as a team, and Q10 is a key player.

When antioxidants run low free radical damage is increased. In turn, this speeds the aging process. Q10 has gained notoriety as a potent anti-aging nutrient because it helps both energy production and antioxidant defenses in a significant way.

Q10 and Nerve Health

In addition to the energy boosting, antioxidant properties of Q10, other research shows that Q10 modulates the key inflammatory gene switch, NF-kappaB⁷, meaning that dopamine nerve cells will be more resistant to any kind of stress. The ability of Q10⁸ to modulate NF-kappaB all around your body is another angle on the anti-aging properties of Q10.

Q10 and Muscle Health

Muscles are big users of Q10. A prolonged lack of Q10 may contribute to or possibly be the cause of significantly impaired muscle function.

The ability to use your muscles and get a good energetic response in their performance is based in no small part on your mitochondria⁹. In middle-age untrained men, 150 mg of Q10 per day was shown to increase their sense of energetic vigor¹⁰. A dose of 300 mg Q10 per day increased the ability of healthy people to perform strenuous exercise before reaching fatigue¹¹ (100 mg was not enough to show a difference in this study). In a study with 10 patients who had documented genetic Q10/mitochondrial problems, 150 mg of Q10 each day for six months produced clinically measurable remarkable improvement in brain and muscle function¹².

Q10, Exercise, and Fat Burning

Due to its combination of increased energy production and improved antioxidant function, Q10 is one of the best nutrients to take while on an exercise program. A 200 mg per day dose of Q10 has been shown to reduce free radical damage and boost time to exhaustion¹⁷ – Q10 levels during exercise directly related to oxygen utilization. Another human study showed that 90 mg of Q10 boosted fat burning¹⁸ during exercise.

To really understand how Q10 boosts fat burning during exercise it helps to understand a bit about the subject of uncoupling proteins. Human genome mapping has identified five primary metabolic uncoupling proteins (UCPs). A UCP disconnects normal cell-energy production and turns calories into 100 percent heat. In essence, this is a method of completely disposing of calories – a great way to lose weight if you can do it in a healthy way.

A well-known example of this is the metabolism of brown adipose tissue, or BAT. This type of fat tissue is totally different from the white adipose tissue that stores extra fat. It has many nerves flowing into it, as well as a blood supply, thus giving it a brownish color and its name. It is the only tissue in the body that contains UCP1.

UCP1 allows this tissue to turn a calorie into 100 percent heat. Normal cell energy production makes 35 percent heat and 65 percent energy in the form of ATP. Activation of BAT is naturally stimulated by an individual’s need to adapt to a colder temperature; the hallmark of its activation is the shiver response.

BAT is also stimulated by nerves, especially adrenaline. Since the 1980s, nerve stimulation of BAT has been a favorite target of many weight loss strategies that employ ephedra, caffeine, stimulant drugs, or some other type of nerve stimulant. The idea is that by stimulating BAT, extra fat calories will be melted away in the form of heat production.

We now know that this type of weight loss strategy is risky and prone to relapse. There are serious cardiovascular and kidney side effects from this type of excess and ongoing nerve stimulation. Too much nerve stimulation to lose weight invariably results in yo-yo dieting once the stimulation is stopped.

However, a different uncoupling protein called UCP3, which is found in your muscles, can also dispose of calories as heat. The great news is that it does this without any cardiovascular or kidney side effects or induction of the yo-yo response!

You can activate UCP3 by achieving better leptin control, by aerobic exercise¹⁹, by increasing overall antioxidant status²⁰, and specifically by taking Q10²¹. Even walking 150 minutes a week can boost UCP3 activity in type 2 diabetic patients²².

This gives you another great tool to help speed up the clearance of fat. Take some Q10, do some aerobic exercise, and you will tend to notice a better metabolic and fat burning response.

Summary

Q10 is an important nutrient to assist energy production and your antioxidant defense system. It helps your nerve, cardiovascular, and muscle health; and metabolism. Along with other factors that comprise a healthy lifestyle, Q10 is a terrific nutrient to have on your anti-aging team.