Most of you know I have cardiovascular disease. Of course the docs want to put me on statin drugs forever to lower my cholesterol. Lipitor does 8 billion dollars/year alone.
Prior to going to prison I controlled my cholesterol with
plain niacin. One cannot get that in the "Slammer" so the docs put me on Zocor. I asked the doc to let me have some CoQ-10 for statin drugs deplete it. He scoffed and said it was not available.
If you will continue to take statin drugs be sure to take a minimum of 150 mg. of CoQ-10. I prefer the softgel form daily. When I was in the supplement business I tested many brands of CoQ-10. Very few met specs and some were outright frauds.
Statin Drugs and CoQ10 Deficiency
Most of us now realize that statins lower cholesterol through inhibition of the well-known mevalonate pathway of cholesterol biosynthesis. An unfortunate and inevitable side effect of mevalonate blocking is interference of ubiquinone metabolism.
The implications of this were well known to the pharmaceutical industry from the very beginning of statin development. Ubiquinone is more commonly known by the names Coenzyme Q10, Co enzyme Q10, Co Q10 and Q10.
CoQ10 is arguably our most important essential nutrient. Its role in energy production is to make possible the transfer of electrons from one protein complex to another (within the inner membrane of the mitochondria) to its ultimate recipient, ATP.
The adult human body pool of this substance has been reported to be 2 grams, and requires replacement of about 0.5 gram per day. This must be supplied by endogenous synthesis or dietary intake. Synthesis decreases progressively in humans above age 21, and the average ubiquinone content of the western diet is less than 5 mg/day. Thus, Co-enzyme Q10 supplementation appears to be the only way for older people to obtain their daily need of this important nutrient.
Nearly 40 million people will be taking Lipitor this year in the United States alone, with an additional 20 million taking other types of statin drugs of comparable effect. Most of these people will be over 50 years of age and few of them will be on supplemental CoQ10. Simple logic dictates that the statin drug impact on CoQ10 availability and mitochondrial energy production will be profound.
The heart is usually the first to feel statin associated CoQ10 depletion because of its extremely high energy demands. Physicians are seeing this as cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure but chronic fatigue is also being reported and we must remember that every cell in the body is dependent upon adequate energy reserves.
In addition to it's critically important role in energy production, CoQ10 has a possibly even greater role within the mitochondria as an anti-oxidant, with a free radical-quenching ability some 50 times greater than that of vitamin E.
Without adequate stores of CoQ10 and lacking the repair mechanisms common to nuclear DNA, irreversible oxidative damage to mitochondrial DNA results from buildup of superoxide and hydroxyl radicals. We must remember that our mitochondria are in immediate contact with oxygen - front line warriors, so to speak, in our struggle to obtain life-giving oxygen without sustaining excessive oxidative damage.
The inevitable result of excessive free radical accumulation is an increase in the rate of mitochondrial mutations. Only in the early eighties did researchers learn that our mitochondrial DNA codes for a number of molecules vital to our energy supply. It specifies the structure of thirteen proteins and twenty-four RNA molecules involved in the energy production sequence.
Since that time investigators have learned that the result of mutations in mitochondrial DNA cause or contribute to a wide range of disorders. Evidence indicates that this process, known as somatic mitochondrial mutation, may be involved in diabetes and may well contribute to heart failure.
A growing body of evidence indicates that genetic injury in mitochondria may also play a role in the aging process, and in the chronic degenerative diseases, which we encounter in later life. Ongoing research fully documents the reality that our energy production declines and somatic mitochondrial DNA mutations increase as we grow older. The activity of certain of our respiratory protein complexes has been found to fall with age within the brain, skeletal muscles, heart and liver.
Additionally, various rearrangement mutations in mitochondrial DNA are noted more commonly in aging brain tissue (especially memory areas and motor sites), as well as skeletal & heart muscle. Few of these mutations reach detectable levels before age 40, but they increase exponentially after that. In the absence of sufficient CoQ10 this entire process is accelerated.
The obvious inference is that an inevitable consequence of widespread statin use will be aggravation of these very factors we in preventive medicine are trying to modulate. Ubiquinone in a slightly altered form known as ubiquinol is found in all cellular membranes where it has a vital function in maintaining membrane integrity.
Compromise of this important role is thought to be involved in our increasing number of statin associated neuropathies as well as our flood of myopathy reports and the frequently fatal form of muscle damage known as rhabdomyolysis.
Although Baycol was recently removed from the market because of its association with excessive deaths from rhabdomyolysis, deaths from this extreme form of muscle cell breakdown still are being reported since all statins share this tendency.
It should be added that muscle damage with its at times disabling aches and pains remains the most commonly reported side effect of statin drugs use. It is nothing but collateral damage in our misguided war on cholesterol.
A source of 60 50 mg. CoQ-10 for under $13.00 This is the only supplement company which published an independent laboratory report on their products. Most wouldn't dare for they would not meet
specifications or are outright frauds.
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