Dear Friends,
CoQ10, and particularly the ubiquinol form, is a nutrient that we recommend as a supplement for just about all of our customers because we believe maintaining healthy levels of CoQ10 is a core part of healthy aging.
CoQ10 is best known for heart health, where its two main actions help us every day.
By working to promote cellular energy, CoQ10 helps fuel the pumping of blood to and from our heart.
Plus, CoQ10’s strong antioxidant function helps to protect blood vessels and the cardiovascular system from the destructive effects of free radical damage and oxidative stress.
About 90% of the CoQ10 our bodies use is the ubiquinol form, which is one of the main reasons we recommend you take a ubiquinol supplement.
Research Exploring Other Potential Benefits of Ubiquinol
The leading provider of ubiquinol for supplements, a company called Kaneka, has been investing in research to investigate other areas of health where ubiquinol might be able to help us.
One of these areas is women who are experiencing menopausal or post-menopausal symptoms.
In the age range that women usually experience the hormonal changes associated with menopause, CoQ10 levels in the body are also changing - typically declining markedly.
A recent study indicated ubiquinol supplements may offer relief for certain symptoms related to menopause.
Before we go further, I want to mention that the supplement studies we usually focus on at NatureCity are randomized placebo-controlled studies published in peer reviewed journals.
That’s not the case here and although I think the findings are interesting and worth your time, we need more controlled studies to verify the CoQ10 benefits we’ll be discussing today.
You may be thinking, well, why are you discussing it then? Two reasons:
One, even if you don’t experience the menopausal benefits this study reported, I truly feel your body and health can benefit from CoQ10. It’s a core nutrient our bodies need to age well - so you won’t be wasting money, in my view.
Second, this is a challenging area for women and the existing supplement options are kind of limited, and don’t seem to offer consistent support.
Large Test Group of 200 Women
This CoQ10 study was conducted by a research institute in France, and 200 women between the ages of 45 and 55 participated.
Women who were included had to be experiencing menopausal discomfort that they rated at least a 5 on a 1 to 10 scale in areas such as emotional imbalance, stress, sleep challenges and muscle discomfort.
Also, women were excluded from the study if they were receiving hormone or other treatments or taking supplements for menopause. The researchers used these parameters to try to isolate the impact of the CoQ10 as much as possible.
The 200 participants took 200mg of CoQ10 as ubiquinol daily for 2 months.
By the end of the 60-day study, about 80% of women reported feeling less stress, irritability, and sensitivity than before they started taking the supplements.
About 80% also reported improvements in mood and indicated they started feeling more emotionally stable after 30 days of taking the CoQ10, and this continued through the end of the study.
In addition, about 70% reported improvements in sleep quality, feelings of well-being, and less muscular discomfort by the end of the study.
You may be wondering about help with night sweats or hot flashes - that wasn’t cited in this study as something they tracked. The focus of this study appeared to be more on psychological and emotional health.
These encouraging findings pave the way for more research. As I mentioned, it was great that this study had 200 participants, that’s a very good sample size, but not having a placebo group makes it more challenging to put these results in context.
Should I Give Ubiquinol a Try?
While we wait for more scientific evidence, you may be wondering should I try this?
I’d say if your doctor doesn’t have any objections based on your personal health situation, and these types of menopausal challenges are affecting your home life or quality of life, then I don’t see any reason not to try it.
As stated, taking CoQ10 ubiquinol supplements daily is good to support heart health and wellness in general. If you get some additional help in other areas, that’s a great and welcome bonus.
If you’re over age 30, I do strongly advise choosing a CoQ10 supplement made with the active ubiquinol, like what was used in the research we discussed today, and not the ubiquinone form, which is found in most supplements.
You can read some of the key points on why we believe ubiquinol is superior if you look at one our CoQ10 product pages. We have 100mg TrueCO10 soft gels and 50mg TrueCoQ10 soft gels both made with Kaneka ubiquinol.
Yours for Good Health,
Carl Pradelli
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