The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Wednesday 21 April 2010

Statins reduce Coenzyme Q10 by 25%

This post includes a summary of a study published in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 1994;46(4):313-7

Study title and authors:
The Doctor's Heart Cure, Beyond the Modern Myths of Diet and Exercise: The Clinically-Proven Plan of Breakthrough Health Secrets That Helps You Build a Powerful, Disease-Free Heart
Books:
Serum ubiquinone concentrations after short- and long-term treatment with HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors.
Laaksonen R, Ojala JP, Tikkanen MJ, Himberg JJ.
Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Helsinki, Finland.

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7957515

This study analysed the effect of long- and short-term statin treatment on the levels of ubiquinone (coenzyme Q10). The study included 17 men with "high" cholesterol who had their coenzyme Q10 levels were measured:
(i) After they had received simvastatin (20-40 mg per day) for 4.7 years.
(ii) After a 4 week treatment pause.
(iii) Again after they had resumed treatment with lovastatin (20-40 mg per day) for 12 weeks.

The study found:
(a) During the statin treatment pause the average coenzyme Q10 levels increased by 32%.
(b) Resumption of statin treatment caused a reduction of 25% in coenzyme Q10 levels.

Coenzyme Q10 is a nutrient that every cell in the body must have in order to produce energy. See here and here

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