It is very important to take CoQ10 supplements if you are on statins.
I have been on statins for about 6 months now to treat high cholesterol (also throw in a CRP of 7.5 and my doc said “let’s get it in check now”). I started out at 20 mg of lovastatin (Mevacor) and had good results with no real side effects. This took my chol. from ~280 to ~206 with strong increase/decrease in HDL/LDL, and my CRP went down to 3.8. Yay!
Then after about 3 months, my chol. went up again to almost 300 and my CRP went from 3.8 to 9.0. HDL remained around 50 but LDL went back up to like 160 if I remember my numbers right. Either way, it doesn’t matter because with an extremely high CRP and chol. back up he upped me to 40 mg a day and switched me to simvastatin (Zocor).
After a few weeks of simv., I started getting achy muscles and I recalled this is a possible side effect of statins. I figured, “Oh well. It’s better than a cardiac event….” Then I recalled reading that statins interfere (it’s not a side effect mind you, but an effectof statin use) with the production of Coenzyme Q10, which the body needs and you get from food. It turns out that people in their 20s have adequate amounts of Coenzyme Q10, but geezers like me (okay I’m 42) stop producing it and need it increasingly from diet. I had been taking it as a supplement for a few years anyway for general health and had recently forgotten to get more after running out. As it turns out, it is very important to take CoQ10 supplements if you are on statins.
Read this article from the University of Marylandand you will see why. Also do a Google search on “coenzyme q10 statins” and read up. Most of the articles agree with the one from UM, except for one crappy one from the Mayo clinic, but read it anyway to be informed of what ignorance looks like. I was especially intrigued to read about the link between Coenzyme Q10 and the creation of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) in the body. As a budding botanist in the mid-eighties I learned that ATP is the fundamental energy source in all cellular life, second only to photosynthesis in its importance to Life Itself. Wow. Yeah….Wow. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I read it. Mess with ATP and you mess with everything else.
I am back up to 200 mg CoQ10 a day (take with or after meals that include (OMG!) fat and am hoping to resolve the muscle pain as well as the fatigue I have felt lately since switching to simvastatin. One final thought: make sure you buy quality supplements. Check out consumerlab.comfor an unbiased test report on dozens of vitamin and supplement manufacturers. It’s less than $30 a year and is worth every penny in peace of mind ‘cos these supplements aren’t cheap! You’ll know you are getting value and quality – and your health is worth it, right?
