What You ACTUALLY Need to Know About CoQ10 and Heart Disease (Backed by Research)

Dr. Stengler: Hey everybody, hope you're doing well. In this edition of Doctors Say the Darndest Things, I have an interesting case history with a local cardiologist — we'll call him Dr. A. Over the years, I've noticed feedback from patients in that he tells them nutritional supplements and diet for the most part really don't have any benefit in cardiovascular disease. Even more surprising, he states that there's no good research demonstrating that CoQ10, known as coenzyme Q10, has any beneficial effect in cardiovascular disease. So what I thought I'd do in this video is, just from the recent medical journals in the last few years, review some of the big categories of coenzyme Q10 related to cardiovascular disease.

Let's start off with the journal Cureus, a mainstream medical journal. The title of this study is the role of coenzyme Q10 in prophylaxis of myocardial infarction — basically, what's the role of CoQ10 in terms of heart attack. In the study, 892 patients with clinically diagnosed and documented high blood pressure were enrolled and randomized into two groups: group A received only 100 milligrams of coenzyme Q10, and the other group received placebo, and both groups also received standard conventional therapy. The results? According to the study, coenzyme Q10 reduced the incidence of fatal and non-fatal myocardial infarctions, or heart attacks. So that's pretty impressive research.

Let's go on to the topic of heart failure. In a study published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, again a very mainstream medical journal, the title is the efficacy and safety of coenzyme Q10 in heart failure — a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. This study included 33 studies, and it showed that all-cause hospitalization for heart failure and brain natriuretic peptide level, a protein marker which correlates with heart failure severity, were lower in those who took the coenzyme Q10 compared to the control group. The researchers stated that, according to the existing evidence, coenzyme Q10 reduces all-cause mortality, hospitalization for heart failure, and also improved left ventricular ejection fraction — that's the main part of the heart that pumps the blood out — in those with heart failure, without major adverse effects.

Let's go to another one, published in the journal Future Cardiology, titled evaluating the efficacy of ubiquinol, a type of CoQ10, in heart failure patients — a systematic review and meta-analysis. This analysis included 16 studies, and they found that CoQ10 significantly reduced heart failure-related mortality by 40% and improved exercise capacity in patients with heart failure. They state that CoQ10 significantly enhances exercise capacity and reduces heart failure-related mortality. Another good one. Let's go to a different study, published recently, titled the effects of coenzyme Q10 supplementation on metabolic indicators in patients with type 2 diabetes — a systematic review and meta-analysis, in the Journal of Clinical Therapeutics. They included 16 studies, and they state that coenzyme Q10 supplementation appears to have a beneficial effect on lipid profiles and may contribute to lowering blood pressure in patients with type 2 diabetes, suggesting CoQ10 should be a valuable adjunctive therapy for managing cardiovascular risk in this population. So essentially, people with diabetes are at higher risk for cardiovascular problems, and they're finding that CoQ10 was effective in helping with the lipid profiles, your cholesterol, and blood pressure.

I've been helping patients with nutrition and dietary supplements for over 30 years. If you're looking for doctor-formulated, high-potency, high-quality supplements, go to drstengler.com. Let's move on to the category of blood pressure. Here we have a study in the journal Nutrition, published in 2022, titled the dose-response effect of coenzyme Q10 supplementation on blood pressure among patients with cardiometabolic disorders — a GRADE-assessed systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. This analysis included 26 studies comprising 1,831 people, and they found that CoQ10 supplementation significantly reduced systolic blood pressure — that's the first number, the pressure in the blood vessels as blood is being pumped out of the heart. They say the clinically beneficial effects may be attributed to the reduction in systolic blood pressure, and 100 to 200 milligrams daily of CoQ10 supplementation may achieve the greatest benefit on systolic blood pressure in patients with cardiometabolic diseases.

Let's go to the topic of statin-induced myopathy. This refers to the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs used by tens of millions of Americans, one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in America and around the world. One of the potential side effects is myopathy, which is muscle damage or muscle pain, and we've known for many decades, since the discovery of statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, that they deplete the body of coenzyme Q10 — they actually interfere with the liver's natural production of coenzyme Q10. Let's look at a study in the Journal of the American Heart Association, very mainstream, titled the effects of coenzyme Q10 on statin-induced myopathy — an updated meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. There were 12 randomized controlled trials, a total of 575 patients, with 294 patients taking CoQ10 supplementation and 281 in the placebo group. They found that CoQ10 supplementation ameliorated statin-associated muscle symptoms, implying that CoQ10 supplementation may be a complementary approach to manage statin-induced myopathy. That was in 2018.

Let's go to 2024 with the same subject, published in the journal Cureus, titled the effectiveness of coenzyme Q10 supplementation in statin-induced myopathy — a systematic review. In this analysis, five studies were selected; one was a meta-analysis, four were randomized controlled trials, done between 2010 and 2023 and involving 800 patients. While all the randomized controlled trials showed improvement in statin-associated myopathy with CoQ10 supplementation, whether the statin drug was reduced or not, there were no side effects from CoQ10. The author said it can be deduced that CoQ10 supplementation significantly ameliorates statin-induced musculoskeletal symptoms.

So you can see, doctors do say the darndest things. Any cardiologist who says that coenzyme Q10 doesn't have any research showing it's beneficial for cardiovascular conditions really is speaking nonsense. I hope you enjoyed this edition of Doctors Say the Darndest Things, and look for more videos on this subject.

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