Ubiquinol Found Inferior to Ubiquinone COQ10, Get the Facts

: Heart Health; Mar 15 2016

CoQ10: Which Form is Best? Ubiquinol Vs Ubiquinone - Don't Believe the Hype!

Coenzyme Q10 production drastically declines as we age and is now recognized as a key biomarker of aging and chronic disease.

Numerous studies have shown that CoQ10 is lowest in people with heart conditions, cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Without CoQ10 we would not have enough energy to stay alive! CoQ10 is an energy stimulator that is naturally present in almost every cell in our body. Loss of energy is a common sign of aging and disease.

Coq10 best type

Back in 2006 a new type of CoQ10 supplement called Ubiquinol was released by a Japanese company called Kaneka and since then there has been a lot of hype and partial misinformation about Ubiquinol. Today, a lot of people are misinformed into thinking that the overpriced ubiquinol form of CoQ10 is better.

Understanding the Differences Between the Ubiquinol and Ubiquinone Forms of CoQ10

First it is necessary to alleviate some of the confusion around CoQ10. Both forms of CoQ10 are interchangeable. Your body can freely convert Ubiquinone to Ubiquinol and vice a versa; therefore if your body is functioning properly, there is not really much of a difference between the two forms.

One of the main aspects around the hype of Ubiquinol is that they say it is more bioavailable than the powdered form of CoQ10. Although maybe true, this is a manipulation of the facts; as any informed consumers knows not to buy this poorly absorbable powdered form of Ubiquinone CoQ10. Plus, we could not find even 1 legitimate study that demonstrated that ubiqunol is more bioavailable than the non powder ubiquinone form.

There are however, highly bioavailable forms of Ubuiquinone CoQ10 like the Q Gel form that we carry, which is up to 5 times more absorbable than the powder form and superior in absorption over overpriced Ubiquinol.

Both names Ubiquinone and Ubiquinol are derived from the word "ubiquitous," meaning 'everywhere', because both forms are found everywhere in your body.

Ubiquinone is the standard form of CoQ10 used to create ATP, which is our bodies storehouse of available energy. Ubiquinol is the reduced form of CoQ10 that has two extra electrons and is used to help provide anti-oxidant protection. The body converts these two forms back and forth in cells, blood and lymph in a cyclic manner as they each perform their specific functions in our cellular metabolism.

With the presence of vitamin E, Ubiquinol can be transformed into Ubiquinone and vice a versa. Research over time will tell us how well this conversion process actually functions. In the meantime if you are going to take only one form, then skip the overpriced ubiquinol.

Ubiquinol - Busting the Hype of this Overpriced Nutrient

Probably one of the best reasons for taking the regular Ubiquinone CoQ10 is that there have been over a 1,000 studies proving its benefits; but on the other hand, only a handful of studies have been done using the Ubiquinol form. To be honest, the health benefits of taking Ubiquinol alone is just not proven yet and probably never will be.

The vast majority of cardiologists still recommend the standard ubiquinone form of CoQ10.

Additionally, while claims have been made that adults over 35 have difficulty reducing ubiquinone to ubiquinol, a recent human study indicates otherwise; and in fact the reverse may be true, in that your body may have a hard time producing the ubiquinone portion from ubuiquinol, clearly more studies need to be done.

Why We DON'T Recommend Ubiquinol?

The crazy part of this whole thing is that it is the older ubiquinone form that is needed to create energy in our cells. One of the main reasons to take Coq10 is to provide energy via ATP production to help our heart and aging mitochondria.

One of the main hallmarks of aging is a rapid decline in cellular energy. Mitochondria are responsible for over 90% of the energy production of our cells and ONLY the original ubiquinone form provides the mitochondria with what they need to create cellular energy.

The inferior reduced Ubiquinol form is in fact the by product of our bodies own process of using the Ubiquinone form to create cellular energy.

In order to produce energy in the body Ubuiquinone shuttles electrons accross the inner membranes of the mitochondria, and to do this it has to be an electon acceptor. Ubuiquinol on the other hand is formed as a redox reaction of creating cellular energy and takes on two extra electons in the process. Ubiquinol does not create any cellular energy at all, absolutely zero. Ubiquinol with its extra electrons then becomes an electron donor, as an electron donor it becomes an antioxidant and gives electrons to nuetralize free radicals and super oxides.

When it comes to Ubiquinol, it is not even a very good antioxidant and is much weaker than vitamin E, and super antioxidant Astaxanthin is 800 times more powerful than ubiquinol. Ubiquinol is just our bodies reaction to creating energy, it is kind of useless on its own, but does act as mild antioxidant in the body.

Once again, Ubiquinol does not provide any cellular energy of its own, and needs to in fact be converted back to Ubuqinone in the body in order to create cellular energy. Frankly, the whole Ubuiquinol thing is mostly misinformation as most sites that market Ubuquinol make you think that it increases cellular energy and helps your heart which is wrong. Actually, the antioxidant aspect of ubquinol can help your heart, but so can all the other antioxidants out there. CoQ10 is a must take supplement for people over 40 and the magic of it is that it creates cellular energy and then its reduced form acts as an antioxidant, then cycles back into Ubiquinone to create more energy to our body and aging mitchondria.

Mitochondrial degradation has been correlated with all the major diseases of aging and is also related to the loss of energy as we age. By the time we are 90 over 95% of our mitochondria have become damaged.

It is quite interesting to note that the most prominent current scientific theory on why we actually age is the Mitochondrial Theory of Aging, and the traditional ubiquinone form of CoQ10 is the only form that has been proven to help our mitochondria function properly.

Our heart uses more energy than any other muscle in our body. The ubiquinol form does not provide us this needed energy and only acts as an antioxidant. The sad part is that we are one of the only sites that is currently talking about the fact that only Ubiquinone produces cellular energy for our mitochondria and heart; the inferior hyped Ubiquinol form is just and antioxidant, and most people think they are taking it to protect their heart which is a false claim perpetuated by people selling this inferior Ubiquinol form of CoQ10.

The Ubiquinol marketing phenomena originally created by the Kaneka Corporation appears to be mostly hype and is based on a lot of misinformation and distorted rat studies originally created to sell a more expensive mostly unproven supplement.

Since the Ubiquinol version can cost almost twice as much as regular Ubiquinone CoQ10 it therefore appears to be mostly a waste of money; and as a result, we do not recommend, nor do we even carry Ubiquinol at this time.