Whether your key body concern is fitness, eyesight, heart, skin or joint health, we’re pretty sure that you, like most people on the planet, want to age in the healthiest way possible. If you tick that box, there’s one major antioxidant that you need to know about and surprisingly, it’s something that your body makes for you: coenzyme Q10 – also known as vitamin Q, CoQ10, ubiquinone and the energy drink of the cells (ok, we made that last one up).
What Does It Do?
CoQ10 is a substance found in the bodies of almost all life forms and is vital in helping your trillions of cells to convert the food we eat into the energy they need to function properly. CoQ10 also plays an important role in helping to reduce free radical damage from occurring, which helps to delay the cell aging process in our bodies.
Essential Fact
Until you hit the age of 30, your body produces the right amount of CoQ10 to keep your cells in good health. Unfortunately, from the age of 30 onwards CoQ10 production levels can drop by as much as 10 per cent per decade, meaning by 50 years old your cells may be getting 20 per cent less defence and energy than they did when you were 30.
The Result
Anyone over 40 can relate in some way to the above scenario, whether it’s your eyesight starting to flag, your skin having less pep, your joints getting stiffer, or just a general lack of get up and go, go, go. This is because the cells that make up your body are getting less of the energy they need to do their duties.
Your skin, for example, relies on two key proteins – elastin and collagen – to remain healthy and supple. Tired skin definitely becomes more commonplace once you cross the 35-year-old threshold, and this is because your skin cells that produce these two vital proteins are getting less of the energy and free radical protection they need, due to the downturn in CoQ10 production.
Foods Rich in CoQ10
There are many foods that can deliver a portion of the CoQ10 your body requires, particularly venison, organ meats and nuts. Dark green vegetables are also thought to help boost CoQ10 production within the body, if you expose yourself to sunlight after eating them to activate the internal chemical process, according to Dr Michael Greger, author of the book How Not To Die. If you’re concerned about the above foods for environmental, health or just time-in-the-day reasons, you can also consider supplementing CoQ10 in your diet.
The Supplement Situation
CoQ10 supplements have been widely available for many years in various forms. Unfortunately, CoQ10 is a fairly large fat-soluble molecule which ideally needs to be taken with food, so absorption from the intestine is relatively poor and slow, meaning it’s not very effectively absorbed into the blood stream. Additionally, your body makes CoQ10 in the mitochondria (your cells’ energy-producing factories), so it makes sense that to increase CoQ10 in your cells, it needs to get inside the mitochondria. But the mitochondria have very impermeable membranes, allowing very few molecules to enter them, leaving most CoQ10 supplements on the outside. In fact, less than 5 per cent of regular CoQ10 gets into the mitochondria where it’s most needed.
CoQ10 To The Power of 100
Luckily, a CoQ10 breakthrough was discovered by two New Zealand biochemists in the late 1990s. They realized that mitochondria have a significant negative charge compared to the rest of the cell, so they attached a positive charge to a molecule based on CoQ10, which the mitochondria actively pull inside.
Released to the public in 2013 as the health supplement MitoQ, this molecule (called mitoquinol) has shown significant promise in over 50 different models of health issues including seven of the top ten most costly to human life, and been featured in over 350 studies published and reviewed by the international scientific community.
MitoQ’s breakthrough molecule is the main component of the original MitoQ 5mg supplement as well as eight other products with additional nutritional ingredients to additionally support the heart, brain, liver, joints, blood sugar, eyes and skin. Giving your cells the inner strength to go and do what they do best.
For more information, visit mitoq.com
Always read the label and use as directed. If symptoms persist, see your healthcare professional. MitoQ Ltd, Auckland. TAPS PP4181
