Healthy Andy

Those living with heart failure have an interesting new potential addition to their treatment regimen… the potent antioxidants Pycnogenol and CoQ10. While the use of CoQ10 with heart failure has been getting kicked around for a while (it is an extremely common therapy for congestive heart failure in Japan), the addition of pycnogenol (which we’ve talked about quite a bit on this site) seems to make for a potent one-two punch.

It seems this way because of a recent study in which researchers studied the effects of a pycnogenol/CoQ10 combo used as an adjunct (additional therapy) to a standard treatment regimen for those with congestive heart failure.  This sort of experimental design is nice, because you’re not withholding treatment from anybody… you essentially find a bunch of people who are doing the standard therapy, split them in two, and give half of them a little something extra (rather than give one group a treatment, the other a placebo, and sit back and cackle evilly as you wait to see if the sugar pill group dies).

First a quick overview of the condition, and then we’ll go over the study in detail.

Congestive Heart Failure

CoQ10 and Pycnogenol can help the symptoms of heart failure

CHF or just plain old “heart failure” is pretty much what is sounds like… a condition in which the heart isn’t able to keep up with the demands on it.  It isn’t sudden like a heart attack; it’s a slow, grinding sort of process, in which the heart keeps trying and trying to keep up, but lags behind just a little bit.

Don’t forget, the heart has to push your blood forward against an already existing pressure from the fluid that’s sitting just in front of the valves.  If the heart is damaged, or perhaps has some issues with the valves being damaged, it may not be able to move that blood around as well, and so fluid tends to accumulate in various areas as the blood flow starts to stagnate.  

For example, one sign of heart failure is swelling in the lower legs, since the heart can’t push that fluid back up the legs (against gravity) to the torso to be dealt with properly.  It’s called distal edema (edema just means swelling, distal just means further away from the torso), or if it gets really bad, pitting edema (because if you push it in with your finger it stays dented in for a bit).

It tends to get worse over time, at varying rates, depending on the patient.  As the heart tries harder and harder to pump enough blood through the system, it starts to enlarge, like a bodybuilder’s bicep.  This can make the underlying cause even worse. 

For example, if it’s a faulty heart valve that’s caused all this mess to start with, as the heart enlarges, the valves will be spread out more, making it even harder for those valves to come back together and form a seal… leading to more leakage, which makes the job of the heart harder, which leads to more heart failure, which makes the heart get bigger, which makes the valves spread out even more… you’re getting the picture.

Of course, exertion becomes harder and harder, to the point where the patient can be exhausted even at rest.  The swelling can start to occur in the abdomen or around/inside the lungs.  Overall, this is a condition that causes a massive decrease in quality of life, as well as posing a risk of mortality.

Depressing, hunh?  Okay, now for the good news.

Pycnogenol and CoQ10 Help Heart Failure

In this study, the researchers took a bunch of people with fairly advanced heart failure, and gave half of them a Pycnogenol and CoQ10 supplement in addition to their regular treatment.  The other half got a placebo in additon to their regular treatment.  This went on for twelve weeks.

What they found was encouraging.  Blood pressure was reduced in the pycnogenol group.  Heart ejection fraction (that’s a measure of how much blood you squirt out of your heart on each beat) increased in the pycogenol group by nearly 25% compared to only about 4% in the placebo group.  That’s a pretty obvious sign of heart failure improvement.

Further, the pycnogenol and CoQ10 group had an increase in their walking distance (remember, people with advanced heart failure have trouble even just walking what most people would think of as a trivial distance) and also a reduction in distal edema (that’s the swelling of the legs we mentioned earlier).  The placebo group… not so much.

The first thing this study tells me is that conventional treatment of heart failure, by itself, doesn’t accomplish very much.  However, with the addition of the potent antioxidants Pycnogenol and CoQ10, some real progress starts to get made.

How Antioxdidants Help Heart Failure

So how come?  What’s so great about Pycnogenol and Co Q10 that people are seeing such a significant benefit with their heart failure symptoms? 

First off, there’s CoQ10.  Like any other antioxidant, it protects the cells of the body from damage caused by toxins or toxic metabolic by-products (more on how antioxidants work here).  However, in the case of CoQ10, it seems to do its best work in the area of the mitochondria, which are the power generators of the cell.  As you can imagine, since the heart keeps beating, beating, beating (we hope), it uses up a ton of energy, so the mitochondria are extra important to a heart muscle cell.  Protect the generator from rusting, basically speaking, and the cell can keep doing its work without trouble.

Plus, CoQ10 pulls double duty and is also used inside of that mitochondria (cell generator) as a chemical used in the actual production of energy for the cell.  So it’s almost like a self-cleaning fuel additive (experts will find that metaphor a bit strained, but hey, it’s close enough). For more on how CoQ10 helps generate energy, there’s this article on CoQ10 and statins or this video on the benefits of CoQ10.

Since heart failure is basically a tuckered-out, overworked heart failing due to chronic fatigue, anything that supports energy production in the heart cells is going to be helpful.  Makes sense, right?

Now let’s talk Pycnogenol.  This extra-powerful antioxidant has a well-documented and interesting side effect beyond protecting the cells from toxins:  it seems to keep arteries elastic.

Keeps what, hunh? you ask.  Your arteries aren’t just static, inflexible, glorified garden hoses.  Quite the contrary.  Each one is surrounded by a circular smooth muscle wall that contracts or relaxes to make the hole in the middle bigger or smaller (according to the changing needs for blood flow in that area).  They’re surprisingly responsive… or at least, they’re supposed to be. 

Years of a typical American crap-food diet tends to make those responsive, springy, flexible arteries turn into stiff, lazy, inefficient lumps.  And if the downstream delivery system for your blood isn’t very responsive, that means the heart has to push that much harder to get blood where it needs to go… contributing to exhausting what may be an already failing heart.

On the other hand, responsive arteries will not only make the heart’s job easier, but it will feed the heart more effectively as well… the heart has a blood supply too!  That may seem weird… there’s tons of blood shooting through the middle of the heart, after all… but the heart itself is fed by a system of coronary arteries.  These are the guys that get clogged up and trigger a heart attack for those of us who love bacon just a little too much.  As you can imagine, the more pliable and responsive these arteries are, the better the blood flow to your heart, which will combat the effects of fatigue and overworking. Read more on antioxidants and elastic arteries.

So, it’s probably not too surprising that a combination of these two antioxidants can help in the treatment of congestive heart failure.  What is surprising, is that it isn’t used more often!  So if you or someone you know is having troubles with CHF, tell your doctor about this study (a link to the official study is supplied below) and give yourself the best chance possible for recovery!

Stay healthy!

Article source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20657530

There’s a lot of info on this site about the powerful antioxidant CoQ10, but I’ve gotten some questions concerning CoQ10 side effects and if there’s anything to worry about.  The short answer is, not really.  But let me go into detail for you.

As a quick reminder, Co Q10 is a vital substance created by the body and supplemented by the diet that is used in energy metabolism and as anitoxidant protection, particularly in the energy generators of the cells (called the mitochondria).  It’s especially important for those taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs (which deplete the body of CoQ10- more on this topic in this article on CoQ10 and statins), but is also taken by athletes, for anti-aging purposes, and for overall health.  Some other promising areas of CoQ10 use are in cancer (to reduce the side effects of chemotherapy) and to reduce the symptoms of heart failure.

CoQ10 Side Effects

Okay, that’s all great, but can it hurt you?  Again, the short answer is no.  This is a substance that is created by the body, so in and of inself, it is obviously non-toxic.  At typical doses (30 to 200 mg/day), side effects are very rare.  There’s some report of insomnia for those taking over 100 mg/day, but I’ve never seen it or even heard any such report from any other practictioner using CoQ10.  In other words, really rare… so rare that I wonder if there isn’t a confounding variable involved other than CoQ10 on these reports.

There’s unclear evidence concerning increased liver enzymes with very high (300+ mg/day) doses of CoQ10.  Not full-blown liver disease, just elevated liver enzymes.  Again, the evidence on this is so weak and contradictory that I strongly discount it.

What is uncommon, but occasionally reported are mild complaints like heartburn and nausea, which are most likely attributable to the quality of the product itself.  If you buy junk CoQ10 from a manufacturer with poor quality control, you may get a product that has impurities in it as a result of those poor manufacturing guidelines.  Look for reputable manufacturers who adhere to GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) guidelines, and remember that you get what you pay for.

The only real side effects of CoQ10 that I think you need to worry about are those in which Co Q10 reacts or interferes with a medication you may be taking.  The big ones to pay attention to here are Warfarin (Coumadin) and insulin.  Specifically, CoQ10 may reduce the effects of Coumadin (a blood thinner), and reduce the need for insulin by diabetics.

Notice that the second of those two “side effects” is actually a benefit!  But, if taking CoQ10 does improve your diabetic symptoms, then your current level of medication may actually end up being more than you now require, so if you are diabetic and you begin taking CoQ10, just be sure to keep your doctor aware of this and monitor your blood sugar levels in case you need to adjust your insulin dosage.  Again, I call this a good thing, because the less medication you need to take, the better!

One more side effect that rarely reported is dizziness.  This is probably due to the fact that CoQ10 lowers blood pressure in some people, so if you already have low blood pressure and are looking to start taking CoQ10, I’d start off with a low dosage (30 mg/day) and work your way up after a few weeks at that level just to be on the safe side.

On an overall note about Coq10 side effects, I will tell you from an individual perspective that I have never encountered any of these side effects or even had another practitioner mention any of these side effects from their practice.  In other words, the incidence of any of these effects are extremely rare.  However, it never hurts to be informed.

My recommendation is, make sure you buy a quality product and take it with a fat-containing meal (since CoQ10 is fat soluble), and you’ll avoid any unlikely nausea or heartburn.  If you take one of the medications listed above, be sure to keep your doctor informed that you are going to start taking CoQ10 and that you want to monitor your medication levels if necessary.

More on the benefits of CoQ10 here.

Stay healthy!

So, for absolutely no reason, I have declared this week “Antioxidant Information Week”.  Which basically means, all of my posts this week are about antioxidants.

Today, it’s a video about Co-Q10, an antioxidant you probably haven’t heard too much about, but is absolutely vital to your health.  This information is particularly important to those taking statin drugs… so if you or one of your loved ones are on those cholesterol-lowering medications, be extra sure to watch!

Co-Q10 is oil-based, so mostly you’ll find it in gelcap form.  It’s also a little on the expensive side, but for those taking statins, it’s a must-have.

Don’t forget that there’s a free report on choosing nutritional supplements available on this site… check the top of the right sidebar.  There’s a ton of info in there, including the mechanism of how antioxidants work, so check it out (did I mention it’s free?)

Questions?  Comments?  Random thoughts that are Co-Q10 related?  Add them below, and be sure to spread the word by using the social media buttons below this post (be EXTRA sure to tell friends/relatives/other people you care about that are taking statins… they HAVE to know this stuff!).

Stay Healthy!