People with chronic heart failure have 43 % lower risk of dying if they take supplements of a natural compound called coenzyme Q10, according to a large international heart study that was published recently.
Improved survival, reduced need for heart transplants and hospitalization, and potential savings on healthcare expenditure could be some of the advantages of treating chronic heart failure patients with a natural compound called coenzyme Q10. Q-Symbio is the name of a groundbreaking international heart study that was led by Danish researchers and published online in the October issue of Journal of the American College of Cardiology, HEART FAILURE, one of the world’s most frequently cited cardiology journals. The results showed that daily supplementation with coenzyme Q10 reduces all-cause mortality by 43%.
“I definitely think that the results we have seen are extremely positive and promising. In fact, I would extend that to saying that with this new therapy form, we are looking at a shift of paradigm in the treatment of chronic heart failure,“ says lead investigator, Chief Physician, MD, Svend Aage Mortensen from the Heart Center at Copenhagen University Hospital.
Safe and money-saving
In addition to lower cardiovascular and all-cause mortality, chronic heart failure patients who took coenzyme Q10 had fewer hospitalizations due to heart failure and fewer side effects than patients who were given identical dummy capsules (placebo). Based on the outcome of Q-Symbio, coenzyme Q10 appears to be a safe and seemingly effective therapy with the potential to become a future adjuvant to conventional drug therapy used in heart failure. This could lead to cuts in health care costs.
Largest study of Q10
The study, a double-blind, randomized trial of 420 chronic heart failure patients with severe heart failure recruited from nine different countries, is the largest placebo-controlled study of coenzyme Q10 and has already created quite an interest among cardiologists worldwide.
“Conventional heart failure therapy focuses on inhibiting various hormonal factors that are predominant in heart failure and which strain the heart. With coenzyme Q10, on the other hand, you support cellular processes that relate to the energy metabolism. This provides extra strength to the failing heart muscle,” Dr. Mortensen explains.
“Results with other heart-stimulating drugs used in the treatment of heart failure have been disappointing,” he adds.
300 mg daily
Initiated in 2003, the Q-Symbio study aimed at investigating how long it took before the participants in the treatment group and the placebo group encountered heart problems defined as unplanned hospitalizations due to heart failure, fatal heart attack, need for cardiac transplantation, or need for a heart-lung machine. All patients were randomly assigned to treatment with either soft gelatin capsules with CoQ10 (one 100 mg capsule three times daily) or identical placebo, which was given in addition to their prescribed regimen of conventional heart failure medicine.
Energy for the heart
What makes CoQ10 therapy so interesting is that it is a compound which the body is able to synthesize itself and depends on for normal cellular energy turnover. Chronic heart failure is characterized by energy starvation of the heart caused by depleted levels of CoQ10 in cardiac tissue.
“Other heart failure medications block rather than enhance cellular processes and may have side effects,” Dr. Mortensen noted. “Supplementation with CoQ10, which is a natural and safe substance, corrects a deficiency in the body and blocks the vicious metabolic cycle in chronic heart failure called the energy-starved heart.”
Source: Journal of the American College of Cardiology