Coenzyme Q10/Ubiquinone - Ubiquinol

[skunkworks]

I am hugely impressed with this stuff!!

Just finished my second bottle of it, so maybe 2 months in and the results have been amazing!

I no longer need a pde5 inhibitor to gain or maintain an erection. Ever.

Of course I am on pentox and ALC but had been on them for a year, the only recent addition has been the coq10.

[crashbandit]

I am hugely impressed with this stuff!!

Just finished my second bottle of it, so maybe 2 months in and the results have been amazing!

I no longer need a pde5 inhibitor to gain or maintain an erection. Ever.

Of course I am on pentox and ALC but had been on them for a year, the only recent addition has been the coq10.

That's great but are pde5 inhibitors bad?

[newguy]

Skunkworks - It's great to hear with have another convert . Hopefully a new study will come out sometime in the near future. If that's positive too, I can see COQ10 becoming much more recognised as a useful treatment.

[skunkworks]

I no longer need a pde5 inhibitor to gain or maintain an erection. Ever.

That's great but are pde5 inhibitors bad?

No they are actually beneficial for a whole host of reasons, but not being able to get an erection without them is not good. I'll still be taking a pde5 inhibitor regularly, but can be far more spontaneous about shagging now.

[ppain]

The Iranian paper on coenzyme Q10 has already been posted on this strand.  See the link under George999's post of October 30, 2010.  But I don't think anyone has mentioned that one year earlier its author Dr. M.R. Safarinejad was the lead author of "A double-blind placebo-controlled study of the efficacy and safety of pentoxifylline in early chronic Peyronie’s disease", perhaps the most thorough pentox study to date.  CoQ10 was found slightly more effective, statistically, than pentox.  Maybe both therapies work on nearly the same subset of cases.  Or maybe one therapy works on the cases that the other doesn't.  We should expect that Dr. Safarinejad is brewing a compound study.  He wrote elsewhere that there isn't any negative interaction between the two medications.

Concerning ubiquinone vs. ubiquinol Dr. Safarinejad is silent.   The study's dates June 2006 to May 2009 are a weak indicator for ubiquinone.  "... the patients were randomly assigned to take 300mg of CoQ10  (Kaneka, Osaka, Japan) orally daily ...  or a similar regimen of placebo ... during the 24-week treatment period. The placebo was a starch compound with the same color and size of CoQ10."  If Kaneka's ubiquinol is always an oil capsule then the placebo being made from starch implies the study used a Kaneka ubiquinone.

Why isn't age a parameter in evaluating therapies?  If Dr. Safarinejad had analyzed both experiments for correlations of efficacy with age, and if he had indeed used ubiquinone, then if ubiquinone's bioavailability is low for old patients, pentox have worked better than ubiquinone for these patients, but worse for younger patients.  But the data analysis could also go the other way.  

I'm not convinced that ubiquinol works differently from ubiquinone in the young or old body.  The contrary expressed in a note by Dr. Cuomo on the Usana website, "dont-be-fooled-by-bad-science", is plausible.  Try to remember how life was before Peyronie's caused us to obsess on our penises, and our pills.

[George999]

We should expect that Dr. Safarinejad is brewing a compound study.  He wrote elsewhere that there isn't any negative interaction between the two medications.

A compound study would certainly be welcome.  My personal experience was that adding Ubiquinol to Pentoxifylline really supercharged the treatment for me with considerable added efficacy.

PS -  Thanks ppain for an excellent post.  VERY informative and thoughtful and much appreciated.  - George

[KAC]

I've been on ubiquinol for maybe 9 months now.  All my meds are just too expensive and I'm thinking of cutting a few out--(I'm also on L-Arginine, ACL, SAM-e, pentox)--Ubiquinol at 300 mg per day is a lot.  Does anyone (George?) know if that's a bad idea?  Or could I cut down on it a bit without adverse consequences?  Or would it be better to cut something out.  The SAM-e is for mood as a way to avoid too many anti-depressents, but I'm lowering that one as well (also expensive).

I do feel the ubiquinol helped with pain, possibly with curvature.

KAC

[George999]

All the stuff you are on is good stuff, but only Pentox, Ubiquinol and ALC have research demonstrating Peyronie's effectiveness.  That is the bottom line.  - George

[ppain]

All the stuff you are on is good stuff, but only Pentox, Ubiquinol and ALC have research demonstrating Peyronie's effectiveness.  That is the bottom line.

It depends on what you mean by "effectiveness".  The 2005 placebo controlled study of Potaba found it to definitely prevent further Peyronie's deformity while failing to reverse deformity.  Some men would be satisfied with a treatment that stabilized the deformation process without reversing it. (All the placebo controlled studies, whether of Pentox, Coenzyme Q10, or Potaba, agree that pain reduction occurs almost always with placebo alone.)

It should be pointed out that the 2005 study actually found 63% of curvature cases improved with Potaba.  However it found 59% of curvature cases improved with Placebo.   Why did the 2009 major study of Pentox and the 2010 major study of CoQ10 (both of similar methodology) find only 12% of cases improved with Placebo?  Different patient selection; different change criteria.  All in all, are we sure that the research has demonstrated Pentox's and CoQ10's effectiveness and not demonstrated Potaba's?

[George999]

You are right.  I should have said "independent research" instead of simply "research".  Potaba has pharmaceutical company funded research.  Personally I put far more stock in the product of researchers who don't make or lose money depending on a product's success.  I also distrust this study precisely because it finds 59% of cases improving on placebo.  In all the time being around here and chatting with patients, I find that statistic nothing short of bizarre.  It makes you wonder what they were using for a placebo.  In any case a 4% improvement margin certainly doesn't sound impressive for Potaba.  On the other hand, if you look at the comparison of cases that got worse, Potaba really looks very good in comparison to the placebo.  But, again, Potaba is a patent medication that makes money for the owner of the patent if they can sell it, and, as far as I know, its only approved use is for the treatment of Peyronie's.  I have a whole lot more confidence in studies done with generics were there is not a lot of money to be made or lost that can bias the study in one direction or another.  - George

[ppain]

George999, Potaba can't be a "patent medicine" since the chemical has been in medical use since at least the 1950's and any patent would have expired.  Why is Glenwood the sole source for potassium para-aminobenzoate?  

I don't fault the 2005 paper for finding curvature decrease in 59% of the placebo group.  I can't tell what their criterion for curvature decrease was.  

Two of the authors of the 2005 study with two others published a literature survey in 2006 again concluding with a guarded recommendation of Potaba.  This work was not funded by Glenwood.

[ppain]

It makes you wonder what they were using for a placebo.

Funny thought.  "The placebo powder was a mixture of potassium citrate, lactose, hydrous, and potassium chloride identical in color and appearance to the active drug."  8% of each group dropped out prematurely due to GI disorders, which would be due to the load of potassium.  Another 6% of the Potaba group dropped out for other reasons.  Another 18% of the Potaba group and 15% of the placebo group were excluded because they skipped too many doses.  Thus it was a pretty well-designed, awful placebo.

What kind of men with Peyronie's would volunteer for such a study in around 2003?  They had not yet had any treatment.  The prevailing wisdom was that Potaba had at least a chance of efficacy and that one year on placebo would leave them with worse Peyronie's.  Were they men with little use for their penises?  Were they men with exceptional healing capacities?  Was it a special set of men?  Certainly not the men populating this forum.

It would be easier for Dr. Safarinejad et al. to recruit for the placebo-controlled Pentox study.  "Patients for the present study had been treated and had one or more previous treatments for Peyronies Disease that had failed, including oral therapy with Potaba (78.3%), ..."   The subjects in the Pentox study were on average 20 months into Peyronie's versus those in the Potaba study just 6 months.  It is understandable that the Potaba study found many more curvature improvements in the placebo arm than the Pentox study did.

[George999]

Its just amazing what you learn when you actually *read* these studies.  The methodology employed often goes a long way toward explaining the outcomes observed.  - George

[Fred22]

I've stayed on the Ubiquinol in spite of the return of pain.  My prostatectomy was on Sept. 22, 2011 and I'n now presumably cancer free.  However, I had some severe urinary retention for a while bladder function getting much better now).  On November 21, had a cystoscopy and the Dr. says everything is healing just the way he likes to see it.  The cysto was a little painful (not excruciating)  presumably due to the fact that the urethra is still healing.  The same day I was taught to catheterize myself, which I did 2 to 3 times a day for amost 3 weeks.  I've only cathed myself once since then, when I went in to give a urine specimen due to penile pain....urine culture was negative and within normal range for everything...no infection.  I continue to have almost constant penile pain.  It sometimes feels like Peyrone's and other times different.  I'm still on the ubiquinol...300 mg. per day and astaxanthin, which I think I'm going to drop...also dropped the ALC as the pain seemed to increase when I added it (I've taken it off and on for a few years and it never seemed to help.  For the firs few months I was on the ubiquinol I really thought it was helping...still have some faith in it for some reason.  I've been taking the Swanson brand and I'm getting ready to reorder.  Is there anyone who would suggest a different brand or is the Swanson ok?  I know they have a good reputation and good prices.  If you have any suggestions, please post.  Thanks....Fred  

[mike67]

Fred22
You asked so I will mention that I have been using Ubiquinol 100 mg from Puritan's Pride. Just re-ordered for the third time yesterday. I went for the 100 mg 120 cap - buy 1 get 1 free. So that came to $92
before frt & taxes. I am pleased with this product. Have been taking CoQ10 for years prior to switching to Ubiquinol after reading posts here , particularly by George999.

Mike  

[Luciano]

I do not know the swanson, I get mine from a british company through the net.
I get the pharma nord ubiquinol (kaneka)
its usually €107 for 150 100mg caps.
At the moment they have a special offer :
€76,- for 150 100mg caps. (thats $103.22)
Here in europe thats a good price for ubiquinol.
http://www.dolphinfitness.co.uk/en/pharma-nord-bio-active-q10-ubiquinol-100mg-150-capsules/23497

Luc

PS:
In pharmacies they only have ubiquinol from pure encapsulations.
its really expensive, around $70 for 60x50mg caps (and they dont have 100mg caps here)

[ppain]

Luciano, thanks for your good find of the cheapest Ubiquinol source for Europe.  (It's cheaper in the US, but US companies such as Swanson won't ship to much of Europe.)

However, greatest savings of money would come from settling the Ubiquinone vs. Ubiquinol question in favor of Ubiquinone.  It's still an open question.  Regardless of which form is taken orally, the ratio of Ubiquinone to Ubiquinol in the blood is fixed for each individual.  Ubiquinone in the blood does some good things and Ubiquinol in the blood does some other good things.  The fact that we especially want the Ubiquinol good things in no way implies that we should take Ubiquinol orally.  All that matters is how much total Coenzyme Q10 gets into the blood. That's the appropriately debated question.  (The Wikipedia article on Coenzyme Q10 is admirably clear about this and doesn't even mention taking Ubiquinol.  There is a separate Wikipedia article on Ubiquinol which blurs the beneficial functions of Ubiquinol with the benefits of taking Ubiquinol orally.  Thus the two camps battle in the Wikipedia microcosm.)

It's about €1,52 per day for Ubiquinol versus about €0,60 per day for Ubiquinone.  Having just one penis, and lacking the certainty that they are equivalent, or nearly equivalent, I too buy Ubiquinol.  (But I take 1/3 of the daily dose as Ubiquinone, dissolved in ghee, to remind myself of the open question.)  All our belief in Coenzyme Q10 therapy for Peyronie's is based on one solid study by Dr. Safarinejad in 2010.  He administered Ubiquinone, even as solid pills.  It is conceivable that his success rates would have been even higher had he administered Ubiquinol.  We don't know.

[George999]

The two are really one in the same.  They are both CoQ10.  Ubiquinol is the reduced active form that the body can use.  Ubiquinone is the oxidized form that the body must first convert to the active form before it can use it.  The ONLY reason you need Ubiquinone in your blood is so that your body can convert it into Ubiquinol as needed.  It is the stored form of Ubiqunol. ONLY Ubiquinol can be used by the body directly.  Younger people can effectively convert Ubiquinone to Ubiquinol.  Older people not as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO08zLpbo14

http://www.kanekaqh.com/ubiquinone-vs-ubiquinol.html

[ppain]

George999, that's the received opinion around here and in parts of the internet but the truth is different.  In each person a redox equilibrium, giving the ratio of Ubiquinol to Ubiquinone in the blood, is determined by the person's blood composition.  If an old person has a lower ratio of Ubiquinol to Ubiquinone than a young person you don't change this ratio by feeding the old person Ubiquinol.  You could even instill Ubiquinol directly into his blood and most of it would simply change to Ubiquinone, to restore the person's Ubiquinol:Ubiquinone ratio.  To increase the Ubiquinol in his blood you need to increase the total amount of Coenzyme Q10, regardless of its oxidation state, in his blood.  Thus the problem of bioavailability for CoQ10 has nothing to do with conversion of Ubiquinone to Ubiquinol and everything to do with how to get the CoQ10 from the stomach into the blood.  The Wikipedia article on Coenzyme Q10 understands this while the Wikipedia article on Ubiquinol obfuscates it.  Reports like http://blog.usana.com/2011/03/28/dont-be-fooled-by-bad-science/ and http://www.totalhealthmagazine.com/IngredientSpotlight/Ubiquinol/isubiquinolallit.html may be written with commercial biases, but they are not confused.
The absorbability (bioavailability) question is not yet definitively answered.  Papers are still being written in 2011, for example: Takeda R, Sawabe A, Nakano R, et al. Effect of various food additives and soy constituents on high CoQ10 absorption, Japanese Journal of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Science 2011;64(4):614-20.
Ubiquinol in Kaneka's formulation does have high absorption. A Ubiquinone formulation needs only to come near to that absorption rate to be a bargain.

[George999]

All I can say is that I would disagree with you on that.  I prefer the explanation of organizations like Life Extension Foundation who have put a huge amount of money into research of this very issue.  In any medical question you will always find those who disagree.  I have found great relief with Ubiquinol that Ubiquinone has not provided me.  Everyone here is free to make their own choice between the two.  My suggestion would be that if Ubiquinone is not working for you, try Ubiquinol before giving up completely.  The testing done by LEF and others has found a difference in therapeutic value.  - George

[ppain]

George999: as I mentioned a few posts ago I am taking Kaneka Ubiquinol.  But for some of the members of this forum the hundreds of dollars of extra expense for Ubiquinol vs. Ubiquinone is a serious matter deserving serious investigation.  LEF's published information is always a mixture of truth with fantasy.  I doubt that LEF "put a huge amount of money into research of this very issue".  They put a huge amount of hack editorial work into writing blurbs that cite up to 105 papers.  Peeking into some of those scientific papers reveals embarrassing level of confusion in LEF's blurbs.  It's a short step from confusion to deception.  

The LEF blurb agrees with my description: "CoQ10 is notoriously difficult to absorb. When it comes to choosing a CoQ10 supplement, the primary factor is how many swallowed milligrams actually make it into your bloodstream."  But in the very next sentence, "A recent study showed that in seriously ill patients, conventional ubiquinone CoQ10 was hardly detectable in the blood whereas ubiquinol resulted in significant blood level increases and subsequent clinical improvements" it is muddled.  That sentence should say: "A recent study showed that in seriously ill patients, after taking ubiquinone CoQ10 was hardly detectable in the blood whereas taking ubiquinol resulted in significant CoQ10 blood levels and subsequent clinical improvements."  Curiously the blurb includes no citation for this.  

Mr. Faloon, the well-meaning head of LEF, wrote another blurb. It too is partly clear and partly muddled.  Consider these two sentences:

"Today's commercial CoQ10 supplements contain ubiquinone because it remains stable longer in the capsule. However, it is the reduced form of CoQ10 (ubiquinol) that has the ability to scavenge free radicals in mitochondria and in cell membranes, sites where free radicals inflict significant damage."

The first sentence is true.  The second sentence, minus its first word, is also true.  But that word "however" is what sows the false idea that the CoQ10 bioavailability problem is one of conversion. Just two sentences later he states:

"CoQ10's ability to cycle back and forth between ubiquinone and ubiquinol accounts for many of its unique properties."

If you don't feel pain from reading garbled science, maybe you're lucky.  It's like penis pain to me.

Faloon's Figure 1 shows the superior absorbability of ubiquinol vs. ubiquinone.  It shows that taking 300 mg of ubiquinol daily for 4 weeks gives the same blood levels of CoQ10 as taking 2400 mg of ubiquinone daily.  This is important because it shows that taking ubiquinone can do everything that taking ubiquinol can do, albeit less efficiently.  If ubiquinol is really 8x more efficiently absorbed, then it's the bargain.  We need to know how the ubiquinone was taken.  Faloon says "conventional CoQ10 in enhanced delivery systems".  Fortunately the key paper, Hosoe et al., "Study on safety and bioavailability of ubiquinol (Kaneka QH™) after single and 4-week multiple oral administration to healthy volunteers" is available online.  Reading this paper will clear everyone's head.  It says, for example:

"...following dietary supplementation with coenzyme Q10, efficient reduction of coenzyme Q10 to ubiquinol occurs either during absorption or rapidly after the appearance of coenzyme Q10 in the blood."

"...we found that when rats were orally administered a [HUGE!] single-dose (100mg/kg) of ubiquinol or ubiquinone dissolved in olive oil, there was an approximately 2-fold difference in area under the plasma total coenzyme Q10 concentration curve between the two agents, indicating that ubiquinol has higher bioavailability than ubiquinone"

"ubiquinol has approximately twice the bioavailability of ubiquinone"

This study is the source of Faloon's 300 mg of ubiquinol daily for 4 weeks data.  The study did not include ubiquinone.  Faloon's Figure 1 compares ubiquinol and ubiquinone bioavailability from different studies!  Good luck trying that.  His factor of 8 is therefore BS.  Hosoe et al. estimate a factor of 2 and include this warning about comparisons:  

"Although many published papers are available regarding the bioavailability of ubiquinone in humans, ..., comparison of the bioavailability of ubiquinol determined in this study with those of ubiquinone reported with different formulations in these papers is difficult, since it has been reported that the bioavailability of ubiquinone strongly depends on the formulation used ....  Furthermore, since there is also significant inter-individual variability in absorption of ubiquinone from supplements ... crossover studies with the same formulation and the same subjects will be needed to accurately compare the bioavailabilities of ubiquinol and ubiquinone in human."

Faloon's commentary on his Figure 4 is a mess.  The pictures of the 12 month old mice do not accord with the graphical data at 12 months.  In this experiment mice were fed equal amounts of ubiquinol or ubiquinone.  Even if the ubiquinol-fed mice at 12 months were the finest this would not show that absorption of ubiquinone worsens with age relative to absorption of ubiquinol.  The need for blood ubiquinol might simply be greater at age.  Also the ubiquinol:ubiquinone ratio in blood might simply be less at age.  

The pat line that ubiquinone is fine for young patients and ubiquinol is preferrable for old patients is based on such rotten interpretation.  Surely more CoQ10 is needed for older patients.  That the absorption factor for either ubiquinone or ubiquinol changes for older patients has never been shown.

Faloon makes one claim that seems to contradict my simple ratio model:

"Supplementation with the ubiquinol form of CoQ10 not only elevates blood levels of ubiquinol, but also increases the ratio of ubiquinol to total CoQ10 concentration. For example, when ubiquinol is supplemented, the ubiquinol to total CoQ10 ratio increases to 96-98.5%, compared to approximately 80-85% when ubiquinone is supplemented. Moreover, the ratio remained unchanged during administration of ubiquinone."

First, supposing this is true, it's no biggie that 96% vs. 80% of blood CoQ10 is ubiquinol, since this can be gotten around by simply taking 20% more CoQ10.  But look at the articles Faloon cites for his claim.  They are from 1989 and 1992, long before Kaneka figured out how to stabilize ubiquinol for oral use.  The 1992 article is titled "Dietary supplementation with coenzyme Q10 ...".  What interpretations is Faloon offering here?  

All the authors of Hosoe et al. worked for Kaneka.  They estimated a factor of 2 of absorption efficiency for Ubiquinol over Ubiquinone.  I am unable to find any US patent for Kaneka QH.  It seems Kaneka itself is less excited about their Ubiquinol formulation than its internet cheerleaders are.  Kaneka knows that with the factor of 2 comes extra manufacturing and packaging expense.  What has double efficiency and costs double doesn't sell much.  The internet cheerleaders find it necessary to falsely embellish Kaneka's accomplishment.  

Kaneka has been the dominant CoQ10 company.  Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company is a similarly large company which wasn't intimidated by the Ubiquinol stabilization and has introduced a new Ubiquinone formulation with double the absorbability of Ubiquinone in oil.

I urge my fellows with endangered penises not be panicked into buying the most hyped drugs.  The sole basis for CoQ10 therapy for Peyronie's is Dr. Safarinejad's 2010 paper.  He used the simplest packaging of Ubiquinone: pressed powder tablets.  Perhaps he had the men chew the tablets with an fatty meal, as has been recommended for years.  Some people might have poorer blood CoQ10 absorption than other people.  We should choose a CoQ10 supplement of a good type well-tested for absorbability (bioavailability).  Hosoe et al. tested only Ubiquinol (Kaneka QH) on 78 people (mostly in their 30's) for four weeks.  USANA tested their "CoQuinone 100" Ubiquinone-in-oil versus Ubiquinol.  They found them equally bioavailable.  They tested just 4 people for just single doses.  It's just an in-house report but it contains no BS.  "CoQuinone 100" seems not to be available in Europe or I'd use it.  Mitsubishi Gas's Ubiquinone product, "BioQ10 SA", also seems not to be available in Europe or I'd use it.  If I could, I'd take one of each which is the safest course of all.

[Luciano]

I'm not trying to be counterproductive but 1 thing:
Our secretary has breast cancer, and her doc told her to take ubiquinol for the 4 weeks until operation.
he prescribed her to use a liquid form, a sort of pump spray which allows it to be absorbed on the tongue and in the mouse through some osmotic thing.
its called "Q10 Gerimed Ubiquinol flüssig" and sells at € 126,-

she so takes about 50mg/day... but does it go immediately in the blood? I found a table saying 45mg liquid = 360mg in caps.

Second question I have:
I am taking 3x100mg kaneka ubiquinol a day - from Pharma Nord.. should i switch to something else? or should I take a higher dose?

Luc

[ppain]

Luciano, www.gerimed.de lists mostly women's beauty chemicals.
Artikel-Nr. 5: 50 ml Q10 Ubiquinol Flüssig ohne Alkohol 126,80 €*
but it nowhere says how much Ubiquinol is contained in the 50 ml bottle (and also doesn't explain the asterisk).
What table of equivalences did you find?  

Are you wondering why a doctor prescribed sprayed liquid rather than swallowed pills (or swallowed liquid)?  Maybe the woman's stomach is in poor condition now for absorbing Ubiquinol.
Are you wondering whether 50 ml of Q10 Ubiquinol Flüssig at 126,80 € is a bargain compared to our purchases of the Pharma Nord capsules?  I'm wondering too.  It's a bargain if the 50 ml bottle contains more than 25 g of Ubiquinol.  It's the same Kaneka QH Ubiquinol in each.  Kaneka's US Patent 7897169 contains much information about food preparation with Ubiquinol.  

Your 3x100mg Kaneka Ubiquinol a day is, I'd estimate, 2 to 4 times the effective treatment amount used in Dr. Safarinejad's study.  CoQ10 has been used in a wide variety of dosages for different treatments over the years and Dr. Safarinejad took a stab in the middle.  You're taking a somewhat higher stab.  Yet higher dosages are still safe.  This is discussed in Hosoe et al. (2007) where interestingly they deduce the safety of high dose Ubiquinol from the established safety of very high dose Ubiquinone.  

[Luciano]

Well the equivalent to caps and "powder" I found in a german pdf
http://peter-weck.de/Umrechnungstabelle_Q_10pdf.pdf
The reason why she is taking it (the liquid form), is the doc told her its better absorbed by the mouth & tongue.

but I think I will stick to what I am taking.
thx for the info.
Luc

[corvette2010]

liquid coq10? I HATE taking pills and getting them down is a chore. I would love to just take my pentox and switch to liquid coq10. Anyone know if will effect me any different? i'm 28 and already taking coq10 twice daily with 2 pentox (3 made me sick) and powder l-arginine before bed and powder ALC in the morning. I would love to switch to liquid coq10 if possible?

http://www.amazon.com/Qunol-Absorption-Natural-Liquid-60-Servings/dp/B001TOTSIQ%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAJASE6HSSVXTNREYQ%26tag%3Dfstchrm-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB001TOTSIQ?afsrc=fstfx

[ppain]

Luciano: the peter-weck.de page uses the extreme 8:1 efficiency ratio for Ubiquinol (Kaneka QH) vs. Ubiquinone powder.  Just taking the powder in a fatty meal might make the ratio to 2:1.  Also not all Ubiquinone powders are equal.  The advanced powder of Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company claims 1:1 vs. Ubiquinol.

Assuming the peter-weck.de page pertains to Q10 Gerimed Ubiquinol flüssig, it reveals how little Ubiquinol is contained in that Gerimed product:  50 ml bottle = about 270 doses of 15 mg.  This means the whole bottle is worth about € 20.

To corvette2010:  I guess you can slice the end off a Ubiquinol capsule and squeeze (most of) the material into your food.  It is nearly tasteless.  Note that exposure to air oxidizes the Ubiquinol to Ubiquinone.  Kaneka's US Patent 7897169 describes how to prepare foods enhanced with Ubiquinol.  Tischcon Sugar-Free Liquid QHTM Liposomal Ubiquinol (170ml bottle 100mg CoQ10 per 1ml) sold by Amazon.com is better value than the Gerimed product but still more expensive than squeezing capsules.

[corvette2010]

So with my pills i have left (coq10 not ubiquinol) i can cut them open and eat them with food? Also what about the liquid coq10 from amazon? it says it is more soluble than the pills and is more effective. Says 2 tsp = 6 pills.

[ppain]

corvette: pills or capsules with Ubiquinone can always be added to food.  Taking Ubiquinone with a little oil rather than with lots of water probably doubles its absorbability (bioavailability).

Amazon's $30 Qunol Ultra High Absorption All Natural Liquid CoQ10 100mg 60-Servings is not a bargain.  Since it's in oil we can be sure it's bioavailability is somewhere in the range from 50% to 100% of Ubiquinol's, but we can't know exactly where it is in this range without solid test information.  In the USA you can buy 100mg x 60 Ubiquinol for $22 from Swanson.  That is definitely a better deal than Amazon's Qunol.  If you don't want to touch capsules, not just not swallow them, then I can't help you.

Kaneka Ubiquinol prices are so low in the USA (such as at Swanson) that the competing, equally bioavailable preparations of Ubiquinone might not be bargains.  USANA's CoQuinone 100 costs much more than Swanson Ubiquinol (although CoQuinone 100 does contains a second ingredient which might interest someone).  Mitsubishi Gas Chemical claims "BioQ10 SA is priced 40 percent lower than ubiquinol, so it provides the best of both worlds: increased absorption at a cost-effective price."  I can find no USA prices for BioQ10 SA yet.  I hope Mitsubishi comes through with such price advantage because I trust their product does what it says.

There's a maze of hype in the CoQ10 marketplace.  You must proceed carefully.  Names like "Qunol" seem designed to be deceptive, and it's hard to take the Qunol brand seriously.  What is the "Quten Research Institute"?  If Quten has pharmaceutical competence it should be able to achieve in their oil based formulation of Ubiquinone approximately what USANA achieved theirs.  USANA states they used "lecithin and vegetable-derived glycerin monooleate in a base of medium chain triglycerides".  Let Quten state what they used so we can have some confidence in them.  Saying this many spoons of this is worth that many caps of that doesn't fly.  And they must lower their prices too.

[corvette2010]

ppain, thanks for the info. I have the coq10 100 mg capsules from GNC. It's fine to cut them open and swallow the contents with any food? If so then I would rather do that then struggle swallowing the whole capsule.

[ppain]

Eat it with fat-containing food, to get more benefit from the Ubiquinone.  That way it will have about 50% of Ubiquinol's bioavailability.  
You can even cook food with Ubiquinone.  There is "no detectable destruction by boiling" but "14-32% destruction ...by frying" as reported here.
You can't cook food with Ubiquinol because it can't endure the heat.

[dioporcolorisolvo]

I'm italian and i didn't understand very well all the discussion.
What the thesis is?

Ubiquionol is not usuful?

Or Ubiquinone is more usuful of Ubiquinol?


I can say that after 6 month that i take ubiquinol i don't see any benefit.

[fubar]

Ppain

Can you share any links or literature on your findings?Very interesting to me.

Fubar

[ppain]

Fubar, there are very many informative links in my past 6 or 7 posts.
Ubiquinone vs. Ubiquinol is an abused topic, and we are abused consumers.

[ppain]

I'm italian and i didn't understand very well all the discussion.
What the thesis is?

Ubiquionol is not usuful?

Or Ubiquinone is more usuful of Ubiquinol?


I can say that after 6 month that i take ubiquinol i don't see any benefit.

Ubiquinol is more efficient than most formulations of Ubiquinone, but if either one works so will the other (with quantity adjusted for efficiency).  
So far as I know there has been just one published study of Peyronie's treated by Coenzyme Q10, by Dr. Safarinejad in 2010.  Men in early chronic (pre-calcification) stage received 300 mg / day for 24 weeks.  54% saw reduction in curvature vs. 12% of the men receiving placebo.  Maybe you'd be in the 46% who didn't see reduction in curvature, but if your curvature stayed the same that could be a benefit of Coenzyme Q10 treatment.  In the study 31% of the treated men saw their curvature stay (about) the same vs. 18% of the men receiving placebo.  Untreated early chronic Peyronie's curvature tends to get worse.  100%-12%-18%=70% of the men receiving placebo got worse over the 24 weeks.  If zero-side effect Coenzyme Q10 accomplishes anything for Peyronie's sufferers it's a great discovery.  (Note that most men whether receiving the treatment or not saw reduction in erection pain.)  

[ppain]

I am unable to find any US patent for Kaneka QH.

I found these three US patents which seem to cover Kaneka's QH Ubiquinol and/or preclude competitors from making an equivalent:

8003828 Method of producing reduced coenzyme q10 crystals with excellent handling properties

7358402 Reduced coenzyme Q10 crystal with excellent stability and composition containing said reduced coenzyme Q10 crystal

7829080  Stabilization method of reduced coenzyme Q10  

[ppain]

During the past 5 years have been many Ubiquinone formulations for improved bioavailability.
For example NanoSolve from Germany.  The 2007 paper by Wajda et al. shows that during the 14 hours following injestion the NanoSolve version provides 5.1x as high average blood level of CoQ10 as a simple powder Ubiquinone.  The testing ended at 14 hours when the simple version was back near zero and NanoSolve version was still quite high so the ratio could have been even higher!  Longer single dose testing is better.  Testing daily blood levels while taking CoQ10 daily for weeks is best.  At around the same time BASF (also in Germany) made another nanoparticle solubilizer for Ubiquinone.  It actually made two versions: Coenzyme Q10 10% DC, a fast-acting powder for direct compression, and Solu Q10 5%, a solubilizate for soft gel capsules. A 2006 paper by Schulz et al. compared Solu Q10 with four other Ubiquinone formulations:
1. simple CoQ10 powder.
2. Swanson Ultra Q-Gel (made by Tishcon)
3. Nature Made CoQ10 (made by Pharmavite)
4. CoQsol (made by Soft Gel Technologies)
Unfortunately this paper is not available free on line, and the on line abstract is scant, but I found some results in a BASF press release.  Bioavailability as measured by the average blood level for 12 hours after taking was as follows:
0. Solu Q10:                 142
1. simple powder:          100
2. Swanson Ultra Q-Gel: 107
3. Nature Made CoQ10:  131
4. CoQsol:                    89
These are very undramatic differences. Unless NanoSolve's nanoparticle trick was sensationally better than BASF's, there is something amiss in one or the other tests.  Schulz et al., also included a 14 day trial which would be more relevant.  I'm trying to get the paper.

I prefer the explanation of organizations like Life Extension Foundation ...

To illustrate the absolute rot of Life Extension Foundation reporting read this sentence from here:

"Life Extension offers the highly bioavailable ubiquinol form of CoQ10 in a patented delivery system with a superior absorption level.²⁵"

Footnote 25: J Food Sci Nutr. 2006 Aug 17; 57(7-8):546-55.

J Food Sci Nutr is a Korean journal that has no such pages.  If you make it "Int J Food Sci Nutr" the pages are exactly those of the Schulz et al. paper about NanoSolve. But NanoSolve has nothing to do with Ubiquinol, and no Ubiquinol products were included in the Schulz et al. comparison.

I buy several LEF products but not their BS.

--------------------------------------------
Finally, SourceOne.
SourceOne makes the most extraordinary claims about CoQ10 bioavailability of all. They've licensed a new delivery system from the Swiss company Vesifact.  It's another nanoparticle trick, for which Vesifact holds US Patent 7081253. As with NanoSolve and the BASF trick, there had to be a CoQ10 bioavailability study.  The 2009 paper by Liu et al. was published in ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES and posted by Source One.

It is interesting to compare the title of this paper to the title of the 2006 Schulz et al. paper.
"Relative bioavailability comparison of different coenzyme Q10 formulations with a novel delivery system"
"Comparison of the relative bioavailability of different coenzyme Q10 formulations with a novel solubilizate (Solu Q10)"

They don't agree about semantics.  Also unlike Schulz et al., and like Wajda et al., Liu et al. finds whopping big bioavailability advantage for the nanoparticle coated Ubiquinone.  "CoQsource" is 5x more efficient than Product B, 6.2x more efficient than Product C, 2.9x more efficient than Product D.  Efficiency is figured as 10 hour average.  Product C is described as an oil-based formulation.  Products B and D are just described as "solubilizates".

Vesifact's nanoparticle trick called VESIsorb is usable for many different medicines. Now the shocker.
SourceOne makes CoQsource, Ubiquinone enhanced with VESIsorb, which was tested by Liu et al.  It also makes "CoQsource QH", which is Kaneka Ubiquinol QH enhanced with VESIsorb.  This flies against all our and Kaneka's understanding of Ubiquinol being itself highly bioavailable. Source One claims that

"A pharmacokinetic pilot study (single oral dose, crossover) in humans comparing ubiquinol-QH to the same ubiquinol-QH in the VESIsorb delivery system ... demonstrated an increase of 696% in peak blood levels (cmax) of ubiquinol. The relative bioavailability calculated using the area under the curve (AUC0-24h) was also increased by 485%."

If the 24 hour average effect of Ubiquinol QH + VESIsorb is 5.85x as high as that of Ubiquinol QH alone then "CoQsource QH" is worth much more than the $1 per 100mg capsule now charged for it.  Is this absorbability improvement possible?  Could Kaneka have been naive to think that Ubiquinol in oil maximized CoQ10 bioavailability and only the stability problem needed solving?  Yes, it is possible.  So far as I know, all studies of CoQ10 bioavailability have been relative studies measuring blood levels after taking various formulations.  The methodologically best study of all, Hosoe et al. 2007, included nothing but Kaneka QH Ubiquinol.  No one compared the amount of CoQ10 in the body's total blood (5 liters) to what went into the stomach.  No one measured the amount of CoQ10 excreted during and after the experiment.  So there is the possibility that what was presumed maximal could be exceeded 5.85x.

A statement in Hosoe et al. 2007 gives some credibility to this.  
"After single doses of 150mg and 300mg of ubiquinol, mean plasma levels reached peaks associated with 2.3- and 4.7-fold increases over baseline plasma levels of ubiquinol after 6 h, respectively, indicating that significant amounts of
ubiquinol were absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract."  They say "significant amounts" as if 5.85x greater amounts weren't unthinkable.

Is 5.85x plausible?  VESIsorb treatment should make Ubiquinone equal to Ubiquinol because they're the same size molecule.  VESIsorb treated Ubiquinone was found by Liu et al. to be 6.2x more absorbable than Sample C Ubiquinone in oil.  Kaneka patent US6184255 demonstrated that Ubiquinol in olive oil was 2x more absorbable than Ubiquinone in olive oil.  Proprietary Sample C must be at least as efficient as Ubiquinone in olive oil.  Thus VESIsorb treated Ubiquinol should be no more than 3.1x more efficient than Ubiquinol in olive oil (which Kaneka believes equivalent to their later QH Ubiquinol).  But even 2x would change the whole game.

If VESIsorb treated Kaneka QH is really 5.85x more absorbed than simple Kaneka QH then why is SourceOne selling it in a 100mg size?  The OSI (observed safe limit) for plain Ubiquinone is 1200 mg/day.  The corresponding OSI for Ubiquinol QH would be about 600 mg/day.  Then the corresponding OSI for "CoQsource QH" is about 100 mg/day.

The Figure 1 curves in Hosoe et al. 2007 showing Ubiquinol blood levels through the first 48 hours after taking 150 mg Kaneka QH have quite different shape (and scale) from the Figure 2 curves in Liu et al. showing total CoQ10 levels through the first 24 hours after taking 120 mg of VESIsorb treated Ubiquinone.  The former is about 160% over base at 24 hours.  The latter is just 30% over base at 24 hours.  The kinetics are way slower in Hosoe, implying larger time integrals.    

SourceOne's pharmacokinetic "pilot study" was at least 6 months ago.  We have not seen results from a proper study. A proper study now would have to compare VESIsorb treated Ubiquinone with VESIsorb treated Ubiquinol QH with other formulations including Kaneka QH and plain Ubiquinone power as baseline.  The study should have a 4 week component like Hosoe et al. 2007 did, since they found blood level not quite fully up at 4 weeks.  The efficacy of a delivery system changes as the concentration in the destination medium changes.

NanoSolve CoQ10 can be bought in Poland.  I don't know if BASF's brainchild Solu Q10 is sold anywhere.
One after another. One sillier sounding product name than the last.  Serious claims intermixed with frivolous ones. In any normal market the discovery of a new product 5.85x more efficient than the previously thought optimum product would end the game, but in this market it just adds to the noise.  No ordinary shopper stands a chance.

Both SourceOne and Vesifact carry a whiff of gamer.  Their symbiosis and their choice to publish in ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES are not confidence inspiring.  But the Liu et al. 2009 paper isn't shoddy, and the "pilot study" might be of similar quality.  At this time, with SourceOne's huge 5.85x factor in the air, and no rejoinders yet from the competent competition, we can't make a rational choice among CoQ10 formulations.

[George999]

To illustrate the absolute rot of Life Extension Foundation reporting read this sentence from here:

"Life Extension offers the highly bioavailable ubiquinol form of CoQ10 in a patented delivery system with a superior absorption level.²⁵"

Footnote 25: J Food Sci Nutr. 2006 Aug 17; 57(7-8):546-55.

J Food Sci Nutr is a Korean journal that has no such pages.  If you make it "Int J Food Sci Nutr" the pages are exactly those of the Schulz et al. paper about NanoSolve. But NanoSolve has nothing to do with Ubiquinol, and no Ubiquinol products were included in the Schulz et al. comparison.

I buy several LEF products but not their BS.

Here IS the retrieval from the LEF reference noted above:

The relative bioavailability of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is markedly influenced by its delivery systems. The aim of this study was to compare four standard CoQ10 supplements available on the market with a novel solubilizate formulation of CoQ10 (Solu™ Q10). Pharmacokinetic parameters were assessed in 54 healthy volunteers after single and multiple intakes of 60 mg CoQ10 over a time period of 14 days. Solubilizates showed earlier flooding compared with oily dispersions and crystalline CoQ10, resulting in significantly elevated area under the curve between 0 and 4 h (P<0.01 solubilizates versus crystalline). The difference in the pharmacokinetic parameters of maximum plasma concentration, time to reach the peak plasma concentration and area under the curve between 0 and 12 h was not statistically significant between formulations. Long-term supplementation resulted in significantly higher plasma levels (P<0.01) for all formulations, with Solu™ Q10 performing best. Intracellular CoQ10 levels measured in buccal mucosa cells were increased (P<0.05) in response to supplementation when starting within the physiological range. In summary, solubilizates were clearly superior to oily dispersions and crystalline CoQ10 in their overall bioavailability, with the best absorption characteristics seen for the novel Solu™ Q10 solubilizate.

Thus the reference DOES exist and DOES have relevance to the LEF claim.  "J Food Sci Nutr" IS the standard industry notation used for the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition.  The reference makes a broad assertion about CoQ10 delivery systems mattering.  Ubiquinol IS CoQ10 and LEF obviously believes that even with Ubiquinol delivery systems make a difference.  That is their point and what they are trying to validate via the reference.  You may believe it is "rot", that is your privilege.  The fact is that LEF was the organization that introduced CoQ10 to the US and popularized it before anyone else had hardly even heard of it here.  Thus I believe they know more about it than they are given credit for.  That is my opinion and remains my opinion.  300mg of Ubiquinol a day may well be overkill.  I would readily concede that point.  But the fact is, it works for me and that is what is important to me.  If anyone here can get good results from a less expensive Ubiquinone solution, then I'm all for that.  But don't make claims based on information you don't have.  You state boldly that "NanoSolve has nothing to do with Ubiquinol".  Where is your reference for that assertion?  I have no idea how you could know that to be the case.  You may be correct, who knows?  NanoSolve is a proprietary product.  Who knows who is using it for what?  LEF could in fact very well be using it for there Ubiquinol product.  I don't think their reference directly infers that, but it could be the case.  - George

[George999]

One confusing factor in this discussion is bioavailability.  Bioavailability has to do with the amount of CoQ10 that makes it into the bloodstream.  CoQ10 is notoriously difficult for the body to absorb.  That is why various strategies are used to increase absorption rate from the digestive tract to the bloodstream.  This problem of absorbability affects both Ubiquinone AND Ubiquinol.  It is fairly easy to measure.  The following is an example:

Bioavailability assessment of oral coenzyme Q10 formulations in dogs

A TOTALLY SEPARATE factor is the differing levels of EFFECTIVENESS between ubiquinone and ubiquinol.  The is a pharmacological issue that is discussed here:

Antioxidant action of ubiquinol homologues with different isoprenoid chain length in biomembranes

Note the statement in the above discussion:  "Ubiquinols, the reduced forms of CoQn, possess much greater antioxidant activity than the oxidized ubiquinone forms."

The potential downside of Ubiquinol at this level is that it wants to oxidate back to the Ubiquinone form and must be stabilized in order to retain its superior ubiquinol form.  While Kaneka does this out the door at the production level, various sub-vendors use additional methods to maintain ubiquinol in its more effective form until it can be consumed.

That leaves the key question of whether or not conversion of Ubiquinone to Ubiquinol within the body declines with age.   Kaneka openly states that it does.  An endless number of docs and pharmacists say that it does on their web sites.  So that process is generally assumed to be true.  However there are those who vehemently dispute this theory.  For example: CoQ10 Facts or Fabrications  They, in fact, say that any ubiquinol consumed in oral form is converted to ubiquinol in the stomach anyway.  That brings their whole point of view into question, since there are clinical studies that indicate ubiquinol is superior to ubiquinone when used orally.  I refer to:  Supplementation with the reduced form of Coenzyme Q10 decelerates phenotypic characteristics of senescence and induces a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-alpha gene expression signature in SAMP1 mice.  This study indicates greater effectiveness of Ubiquinol as compared to ubiquinone.  The study attributes this to Ubiquinol's "superior bioavailability".  If Ubiquinol is converted to ubiquinone in the stomach anyway, how can it retain a higher bioavailability?  There has to be something intrinsically superior about the ubiquinol form.  There is no doubt that Kaneka is using how powered marketing in order to sell their ubiquinol product.  But there is also no doubt that conventional ubiqunone marketers are out there spewing disinformation as well in an effort to compete against an obviously superior product.  To date the research on ubiquinol is scant compared to what is available on ubiquinone.  But there is ongoing research and I am confident that it will eventually reveal ubiquinol to be the superior product.  None of this, of course, gives us a final answer to the question of whether there is an issue with CoQ10 conversion as a result of aging.  But until there is proof to the contrary, the opinion of the majority of docs and pharmacists weighing in should not be taken lightly.

On the positive side I appreciate all of the information that ppain has shared on this thread and the lively discussion that has fostered.  On the other hand there is a point where advocacy can turn into a rant and I think we are approaching that point.

- George

[ppain]

George999: I'm not advocating any CoQ10 version.  I'm a scientist, though not a bioscientist, trying to clarify some confusions about CoQ10 for myself and others.

You have not retrieved the LEF reference No. 25 but just the PubMed provided abstract.  I thought I'd linked to that abstract but see that I messed up the bbc code there.  Schulz et al. 2006 describes only the bioavailability differences for different formulations of Ubiquinone so it has no evident relevance to LEF's statement.  The paper describes a BASF delivery system (Solu Q10) applied to Ubiquinone.  (Incidentally the paper finds it not working remarkably well versus other commercially available delivery systems for Ubiquinone.)  From my reading of the literature, there was no suspicion in 2006 that Ubiquinol would benefit from a sophisticated delivery system.  Look at the main Kaneka paper, Hosoe et al. 2007. They say "it has been reported that the bioavailability of ubiquinone strongly depends on the formulation used".  They say no such thing about Ubiquinol.  They blythely dissolve their Ubiquinol in olive oil for all their measurements of its bioavailability.

You found an excellent reference, "Bioavailability assessment of oral coenzyme Q10 formulations in dogs", to support Hosoe et al.'s statement.  But again this does not support your statement that "this problem of absorbability affects both Ubiquinone AND Ubiquinol."  The dog experiment studied three formulations:
A. simple Ubiquinone powder
B. Q-Gel water-miscible Ubiquinone
C. Q-Nol water-miscible Ubiquinol
The experiment found B 3.6x more efficient than A.  It found C 6.2x more efficient than A.
So there is only the finding here that Ubiquinone's bioavailability depends on the delivery system.  To find this for Ubiquinol would require a comparison of Ubiquinol delivered two different ways.

I have never seen a published study of Ubiquinol delivered two different ways.  I have only seen the two recent sentences from SourceOne about a "pharmacokinetic pilot study" that found Ubiquinol QH in VESIsorb being 5.85x as bioavailable as Ubiquinol QH alone.  That's an amazing number if true.  I discussed its plausibilty in my last post.

Next to this, LEF's citing Schulz et al. 2006 as support for their statement that they offer "the highly bioavailable ubiquinol form of CoQ10 in a patented delivery system with a superior absorption level" is empty.  Conceivably LEF is using the BASF nanoparticle delivery system described in Schulz et al. 2006, and conceivably it worked well for Ubiquinol after not working well for Ubiquinone.  But a citation for a superior absorption level for a version of Ubiquinol must say what superior absorption level was achieved.  LEF isn't saying.

Sorry to be picky about this but "Int J Food Sci Nutr" is the standard industry notation for the "International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition" in which the Schulz et al. 2006 was published.  Omitting the "Int" points you to another journal.  If you google on "Schulz+Q10" you find a lot of both journal abbreviations.  Those without the "Int" all are cribbed from LEF's boo-boo.

If LEF were using NanoSolv as you speculated, then they should have referenced Wajda et al. 2007 rather than Schulz et al. 2006.  But again, Wajda et al. makes no reference to Ubiquinol either.  If LEF is using any patented delivery system for its Ubiquinol, then let them refer to the patent and the study which shows that system enhancing Ubiquinol absorption.

If Ubiquinol is converted to ubiquinone in the stomach anyway, how can it retain a higher bioavailability?  There has to be something intrinsically superior about the ubiquinol form.

We must disentangle four questions:
1. What Ubiquinol<->Ubiquinone oxidations or reductions can occur in the digestive system?
2. How well does Ubiquinol vs. Ubiquinone pass into the blood?
3. How does the "delivery system" influence 1 and 2?
4. Once in the blood can remnants of the delivery system influence the Ubiquinol:Ubiquinone redox equilibrium ratio?

We can be pretty sure that the answer to question 4 is: little or not.  For one thing, the ratio is at least 80:20 with no delivery system. Now one of Kaneka's stabilization methods (described in their US patent 7829080) is to add some reduced Q9 or reduced Q11 to the reduced Q10 (Ubiquinol).  This is to slow the oxidation of the Qbiquinol pre-ingestion, but maybe it slows it after ingestion, and maybe the Q9 or Q11 get into the blood and modify the Ubiquinol:Ubiquinone equilibrium.  Still there's little room for increase of the ratio over 80:20.

Thus the only questions of interest are 1-3.  All that matters for comparing formulations is how much of the CoQ10 gets into the blood.  It is an open question whether X mg of Ubiquinone in its best delivery system gets less, equal, or more CoQ10 into the blood than X mg of Ubiquinol in its best delivery system.  In around 1997, Kaneka's scientists made the delivery system olive oil for each and found Ubiquinone getting approximately half as much CoQ10 into the blood as Ubiquinol did.  But better delivery systems seem to have been found for Ubiquinone since then.  Maybe better delivery systems have been found for Ubiquinol too -- where's published data?  If the best delivery systems turn out to be the same one for each, and if they are nanoparticle coatings, then "equal" might well be the answer to the open question.  

[George999]

Sorry to be picky about this but "Int J Food Sci Nutr" is the standard industry notation for the "International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition" in which the Schulz et al. 2006 was published.  Omitting the "Int" points you to another journal.  If you google on "Schulz+Q10" you find a lot of both journal abbreviations.  Those without the "Int" all are cribbed from LEF's boo-boo.

Interesting.  I entered "J Food Sci Nutr" along with "CoQ10" in an NIH medical journal search engine and it actually took me directly to the LEF citation on the first hit.  I was aware it is an abstract, I wasn't about to copy the whole article on this forum thread.

[ppain]

George999: have you a way to get the whole article?  I wrote to the lead author for a copy but have not heard back.
I misdescribed BASF's Solu Q10 delivery system, which the article was evaluating, as nanoparticle based.  It's something else.

[George999]

I wish I did.  I looks like they have a $43 pay wall standing guard over the full text paper.  - George

[ppain]

So far I'm 3 for 3 on article requests about Peyronie's treatments.  I guess the authors feel sorry for us.
What promises to be interesting in Schulz et al. is the multiple intakes data over 14 days.  

[ppain]

I got Schulz et al. 2006.  It is not suitable for OCR and the Peyronie's Disease Resource Library unfortunately doesn't accept uploads, so I'll try to summarize the paper here.  It compared 5 ubiquinone formulations:

C. simple powder        
S1. Solu Q10                
S2. Swanson Ultra Q-Gel
OD1. CoQsol
OD2. Nature Made CoQ10  

(Please ignore my December 11 reporting on Schulz et al 2006 done before seeing the full paper.)

Available CoQ10 products have changed since 2006 but the detailed chemical descriptions this paper gives for these formulations are nevertheless interesting.

C. 30 mg crystalline CoQ10 (ubidecarenone) and cornstarch
S1. 30 mg CoQ10 in medium-chain triglycerides and polysorbate 80
S2. 30 mg CoQ10 and 6 IU vitamin E in gelatin, purified water, glycerin, water, titanium dioxide, annatto seed extract, polysorbate 80, medium-chain triglycerides, sorbitol and sorbitan monooleate
OD1. 30 mg CoQ10, 1295 IU Vitamin A (100% as betacarotene) and 30 IU vitamin E in rice bran oil, yellow beeswax, gelatin, glycerin, water and annatto extract
OD2. 30 mg CoQ10 and 1500 IU vitamin A (100% as betacarotene) in soybean oil, gelatin, glycerin and water

BASF's proud formulation S1 seems to be a simplified version of Tishcon's formulation S2.  Formulations S1 and S2 are described as "solubilizates" while formulations OD2 and OD1 are described as "oily dispersions".  All those four are in soft gel capsules.

The study found that the average plasma CoQ10 levels through 12 hours after taking were as follows:

C. simple powder:             0.055
S1. Solu Q10:                   0.079
S2. Swanson Ultra Q-Gel:   0.085
OD1. CoQsol:                   0.064
OD2. Nature Made CoQ10:  0.090

These values, and all values given below, are for micromolls plasma CoQ10 (over baseline) per millimoll of plasma cholestrol.

A second study fed the formulations to the subjects every day and there is a graph showing the results after 1, 7, and 14 days. The 14 day value is the most important for us.

C. simple powder:             0.180
S1. Solu Q10:                   0.236
S2. Swanson Ultra Q-Gel:   0.174
OD1. CoQsol:                   0.154
OD2. Nature Made CoQ10:  0.224

Notice how C which had the worst bioavailability in the single dose 12 hour test has median bioavailability in the more relevant 14 day test.  S1 which has the median bioavailability in the single dose 12 hour test has the best bioavailability in the more relevant 14 day test.  However the graph shows that plasma levels for S1 leveled off at just 7 days while those for OD2 kept rising.  Possibly S1 would not have been best in a longer trial.

The study goes on to integrate (find the average value for) the curves for the 14 day study.

C. simple powder:            0.136
S1. Solu Q10:                  0.192
S2. Swanson Ultra Q-Gel:  0.145
OD1. CoQsol:                   0.120
OD2. Nature Made CoQ10:  0.178

These values are the basis of the press release values.  However it is ridiculous to integrate the time curve over a study of daily taking.

In short, Schulz et al. 2006 shows that no conclusions about CoQ10 bioavailability should be based on single dose studies.  Daily dose studies are required and 14 days isn't long enough.  All that should matter for the regular taker of CoQ10 is the final, steady-state plasma level after approximately 30 days.  The one fully adequate study of CoQ10 bioavailability is still Hosoe et al. 2007.  It ran for 28 days at 300 mg per day.  But Hosoe et al. 2007 studied just one formulation.

Recent comparison studies involving SourceOne's VESIsorb formulations are single does studies and therefore can't be trusted to indicate bioavailability.

[dioporcolorisolvo]

I take Ubiquinol of Swanson brand.

Is this brand good?

[goodluck]

Can you gather form the study if they collected all else what the participats were eating or taking.?

Shouldn't Co-Q10 be taken with food and best if some fat is consumed at the time?


Many people talk about Kanaka(sp?) from Janpan as a very reliable source for Co Q10.  It is listed as the source on many common Brands today.  Is that source mentioned in the study?

Good Luck

[Wheelin]

started this treatment 2 weeks ago with the VED, it seems to be helping, bend is a lot less and dent area is stronger. Jim

[Wheelin]

I am on 300 mg of Ubiguinol now got it from puratins pride, seems to be helping.

[George999]

Kaneka is the world's largest producer of CoQ10 products.  They are almost certainly the supplier of the CoQ10 used in the Iranian study.  - George

[Woodman]

Has anyone experienced a increase in Acid Reflux symptoms while taking CoQ10? Ive noticed since I ran out about a week ago and I haven't been taking it my reflux has decreased alot. This is the first time in about 6 months or more that I have stopped taking CoQ10. I usually take it continuously. I googled it and it seems to me that it does have the side effect of reflux.....still not entirely sure though.