The reduced form of coenzyme Q10 improves glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes: An open label pilot study

Abstract

Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) provides the energy for vital cellular functions and is known to act as an antioxidant. We conducted an open label study to examine the clinical effects of supplementation of the reduced form of CoQ10, ubiquinol, in addition to conventional glucose-lowering agents in patients with type 2 diabetes. Nine subjects (3 males and 6 females) with type 2 diabetes and receiving conventional medication were recruited. The subjects were assigned to receive an oral dose of 200 mg ubiquinol daily for 12 weeks. The effect of ubiquinol on blood pressure, lipid profile, glycemic control, oxidative stress, and inflammation were examined before and after ubiquinol supplementation. In addition, five healthy volunteers were also assigned to receive an oral dose of 200 mg ubiquinol daily for 4 weeks to examine the effects of ubiquinol on insulin secretion. In patients with diabetes, there were no differences with respect to blood pressure, lipid profile, oxidative stress marker, and inflammatory markers. However, there were significant improvements in glycosylated hemoglobin (53.0 ± 4.3 to 50.5 ± 3.7 mmol/mol, P = 0.01) (7.1 ± 0.4 to 6.8 ± 0.4%, P = 0.03). In healthy volunteers, the insulinogenic index (0.65 ± 0.29 to 1.23 ± 0.56, P = 0.02) and the ratio of proinsulin to insulin were significantly improved (3.4 ± 1.8 to 2.1 ± 0.6, P = 0.03). The results of our study are consistent with the suggestion that the supplementation of ubiquinol in subjects with type 2 diabetes, in addition to conventional antihyperglycemic medications, improves glycemic control by improving insulin secretion without any adverse effects

Novel CoQ10 Antidiabetic Mechanisms Underlie Its Positive Effect: Modulation of Insulin and Adiponectine Receptors, Tyrosine Kinase, PI3K, Glucose Transporters, sRAGE and Visfatin in Insulin Resistant/Diabetic Rats

“…To this end, CoQ10 appears to be an interesting component that merits supplementation in several diabetes/insulin resistant studies in order to assess its ability to counteract insulin-resistance associated metabolic disorders, and/or diabetes-related complications; studies that were carried either experimentally [6], [8], [12], [13] or clinically [7], [14]–[16].…”

Coenzyme Q10 supplementation for diabetes and its complications: an overview

“…The link between CoQ10, diabetes and fatty liver disease is also discussed. Although work has been carried out to investigate the action of supplementary CoQ10 in animal models of diabetes [1][2][3] and in uncontrolled human studies, 4 this article is concerned with recent randomised controlled clinical trials unless otherwise indicated.…”

Potential role of coenzyme Q₁₀ in health and disease conditions

“…Mezawa et al supplemented nine patients, who continued to take their hypoglycemic medications, with 200 mg of ubiquinol for 12 weeks. 42 Results showed significant improvements in hemoglobin A1c …”