COQ10 Part 1 – Have a Healthy Heart
We are becoming more aware of how important it is to protect our heart health. With nearly 13 million Americans currently affected by heart disease, it is the number one killer of men and women in the United States, today. Statistics show that someone in the U.S. has a heart attack about every twenty seconds. Being proactive about your heart health can save your life.
There are a number of American lifestyle choices that can lead to an inevitable heart attack or heart disease. Just because it is slow to develop and easy to ignore does not mean that it isn’t happening to you. Lack of regular exercise, being overweight, eating a high fat diet, and smoking, all put you at a high risk for heart disease. We, as a nation, rely heavily on the “fix me” attitude instead of focusing on prevention.
You can help protect your heart from damage using vitamins and supplements that target heart health. Coenzyme Q10 (COQ10 or Ubiquinone) is a compound made naturally in the human body, but the amount produced sharply reduces as we age, leaving our hearts at risk from as early as 21 years old. COQ10 protects cells from environmental contaminants and disease. The damage that occurs can lead to heart attack, heart disease and even cancer.
If you are undergoing cancer treatment, be sure to ask your doctor about taking any supplements, like COQ10, because they can interact with some cancer therapies. Your doctor may tell you to take it because it protects the heart from damage caused by many cancer medications. In an additional note, COQ10 can slightly lower blood sugar levels and is not recommended for diabetic patients, unless monitored by a physician, so talk to your doctor before you buy vitamins.
COQ10 helps heart cells resist infection by boosting the immune system and neutralizing free radicals. Free radicals can damage DNA and mitochondria (responsible for cellular energy), hindering the response time needed by cells to keep a heart healthy. It speeds up the rate in which chemical reactions take place in cells, thus keeping the heart’s defenses in top shape. The cells of the heart have the highest energy requirements of all human organs and thus, naturally contain more of this coenzyme than any other cells. As we age, our cells are depleted of this necessary nutrient.
COQ10 and vitamin C (ascorbic acid) are the two most important essential nutrients to human health. Both are actually needed to repair heart cells. Vitamin C and Ubiquinone provide the cellular reactions necessary to produce collagen and elastin, the structural proteins of the heart muscle. COQ10 and ascorbic acid studies have shown that they can control detrimental changes in the body that occur with age. They were also found to reverse age related degradation of the heart and immune system.
If you think that supplementing your diet with vitamin C and COQ10 could help protect your heart and body from heart disease, you could be right. However, you should always talk to your doctor about drug interactions and also about how each supplement could affect an existing health condition. Supplementation combined with a few lifestyle and diet adjustments could help you live a much longer, healthier life.
