CoQ-10 treats diabetic neuropathy

Sunday, March 10, 2013 by: PF Louis
Tags: CoQ10, diabetic neuropathy, medical research

(NaturalNews) The marvels of CoQ-10 continue to be discovered by actual mainstream medical research. Of course, this type of research doesn't get the media hype that Big Pharma's "miracle medicines" do. Thank goodness for the internet.

Two separate, recent studies on CoQ-10 were logged into medical journals, one in the U.S. and the other in Iran. The Iranian study was undertaken to determine the possibility of increasing male fertility among those who are infertile. The U.S. study in Miami, Florida demonstrated reduction of diabetic induced neuropathy.

Coenzyme Q10 or CoQ-10 briefly explained

CoQ-10 or coenzyme Q10 is a coenzyme that supports enzyme activity, which is vital to proper cellular metabolism within the cell's mitochondria throughout the body. Proper metabolism also makes efficient use of oxygen, thus CoQ-10 is also considered an antioxidant that inhibits free radicals forming from cellular metabolism.

Mitochondria are the cells energy factories, creating adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which are the essential energy storage molecules of animal and human life. Respiration, or the utilization of oxygen, is the key to this process.

According to Dr. Andrew Weil, daily doses of up to 1200 mg can be supplemented safely. Although it appears throughout the body, certain high energy organs, such as the heart, require more. Coenzyme Q10 manifests as ubiquinone or ubiquinol.

Ubiquinone is the oxidized version of CoQ-10 that appears all throughout the body and can be partially converted to an active antioxidant form. That's why CoQ-10 ubiquinol supplements are more potent and require smaller dosage but at a higher price. They're ready to go without conversion.

By the way, statin drugs inhibit the body's production of CoQ-10.

Two recent CoQ-10 studies

At the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, 56 subject mice were chemically induced with diabetes while 20 other normal mice were isolated for control purposes. Poor subject mice.

The subject mice were treated to low doses of CoQ10. Behavioral observation was used partially to determine pain levels while several serum and biochemical analyses were used to determine CoQ-10 activity.

The subject mice had some weight loss without lower glucose levels while the control mice weights remained constant.

Long-term low dose CoQ-10 inhibited neuropathy induced pain. From the study's notes: "Dorsal root ganglia, sciatic nerve, and spinal cord tissues from diabetic mice demonstrated increased lipid peroxidation that was reduced by CoQ10 treatment. CoQ10 administration was also noted to reduce the pro-inflammatory factors in the peripheral and central nervous system."

The study concluded that, "CoQ10 administration may represent a low-risk, high-reward strategy for preventing or treating diabetic neuropathy." This begs the question: What about other sources of neuropathy resulting from excess antibiotic use, vaccinations, or statin drugs? More studies, perhaps.

But it appears to this author that trying out CoQ-10 is a low risk endeavor for reducing nervous system inflammation manifesting as neuropathy from any source.

The Iranian study focused on coenzyme Q10 for treating male infertility. The reason the researchers at Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, undertook the study is that prior research had already determined that infertile men had low levels of CoQ-10 in their semen.

So why not try giving some of these guys some CoQ-10 supplements to see what happens? They chose 60 infertile men and divided them into CoQ-10 and placebo groups. The subject group was treated to 200 mg CoQ-10, not really much, for three months while the placebo group did without. Too bad placebo people, you were duped.

Anyway, seminal biological markers for the subject group were significantly improved over the placebo control group. The researchers concluded that three months of CoQ-10 for "... infertile men can attenuate oxidative stress in seminal plasma and improve semen parameters and antioxidant enzymes activity." Maybe phase two of this study should be done at least a year later?

Sources for this article include:

Miami neuropathy study summary http://www.vitasearch.com/get-clp-summary/40585

Miami study journal entry for the technically astute http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23334664

Iranian fertility study summary http://www.vitasearch.com/get-clp-summary/40589

Iranian fertility study journal entry for the technically astute http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23289958

Explaining mitochondria http://hyperphysics.phy