THE
SUBSTANCE YOUR CELLS CAN’T DO WITHOUT
by Phillip Day
As Dr Andrew Saul points out, not one cell in your
body is made out of a drug, it’s all done with food, hence the importance
of diet. The boggling complexity in how proteins are formed, how tissues
come together and the human or animal organism maintains itself in he
first place still escapes science, and will continue to do so for the
foreseeable future. Among honest scientists, however, the mystery of how
nutrition works has led to the desire to examine nutrients in detail to
see if they could be employed therapeutically to fix deficiencies. This
science is known as orthomolecular medicine.
One of the most important nutrients emerging in studies over the past
few years has been coenzyme Q10 (coQ10). This vitamin-like substance was
discovered by Prof Andrew Crane in 1957 and found to be indispensable
in producing ATP energy to drive the cells. To accomplish this, the body
converts available coQ10 to its reduced form, ubiquinol. Ubiquinol also
acts as an antioxidant due to its ability to transfer electrons and stabilise
free radicals.
In persons under 25, coQ10 can be converted to ubiquinol without trouble. Beyond that age, supplementing directly with ubiquinol is better since the body’s capacity to convert coQ10 declines as we grow older. Firing up your cells with optimized vitamin D levels as well as coQ10/ubiquinol makes good sense. A study by Rosenfeldt et al in 2007 showed that coQ10/uibiquinol has the capacity to lower both systolic and diastolic blood pressures by a significant degree without side-effects. Of course, the sensible human will use this as supplementation to an 80% plant-based diet with 60%-plus plantstuffs consumed raw for maximum effect. Dr Saul summarises:
“It has been established that heart muscle greatly
benefits from coQ10 supplementation, resulting in improvement in cases
of congestive heart failure and even cardiomyopathy. Because coQ10 is
so absolutely vital to muscle cells, involved with growth control, cellular
energy production, and other essential life functions, it warrants special
consideration for persons with cardiomyopathy. The research is promising,
but not unequivocal. In my opinion, it would have been more conclusive
if higher doses were employed. I submit that 300–600 mg of coQ10 per day
would be a minimum effective dose. The limiting factors will be either
cost and/or medical disapproval. As there are no harmful side effects
with coQ10, much higher doses are worth a serious therapeutic trial."1