What gets your blood pumping? Is it love, fear or maybe excitement? Well no, it’s your heart.  Your heart is one of the most powerful and important organs in your body.  However, for all its power your heart is just as vulnerable to stress related disease as any other organ in your body. What follows below will explain what CoQ10 is, what it can do for your heart, and why it needs to be included into your diet. 

What Is CoQ10?

The answer to this can be a bit tricky. CoQ10 is not a vitamin exactly, but, it functions as one. CoQ10 functions as an enzyme assistant that helps with energy production for the body’s mitochondria cells. CoQ10 is not an enzyme itself.  However, it assists enzymes in catalyzing the reactions that produce ATP (your cell energy currency). This role as an “assistant” is what makes CoQ10 so important, it’s also the functional definition of a vitamin.

Kind of tricky, right? Well, it gets more confusing.  Because your body creates CoQ10 naturally it cannot truly be classified as a vitamin. Vitamins are defined as essential nutrients that come from your diet.  Because you don’t need to consume food to get CoQ10 into your system it is not considered an essential vitamin.

What Can CoQ10 Do For Your Heart?

Other than optimizing energy production in your cells, CoQ10 can do a lot for your heart health. A placebo controlled study conducted in Taiwan has found that the benefits of CoQ10 go much further then energy production.  CoQ10 has demonstrated the ability to reduce oxidative stress (otherwise known as malondialdehyde) by 29%.  

Malondialdehyde otherwise known as (MDA) has shown significant connections to various cardiovascular diseases. Simply ingesting about 150 mg of CoQ10 can help prevent serious heart issues. CoQ10 also has the added ability of strengthening your heart as a muscle.

 Build A better Heart Regiment.

Just like any other muscle in your body; your heart needs proper nutrition.  Optimizing energy production for the hearts cells is important so getting CoQ10 into your diet is a must. Strengthening your heart’s muscles is also very important. Although CoQ10 will improve the strength of your heart, it alone is not enough. Consider adding magnesium rich foods into your diet for best results. 

Foods Rich In CoQ10.

CoQ10 is not as hard to get as you might think. It can be obtained through supplements such as fish oils, or concentrated CoQ10 supplements. Although, by simply eating notorious organic foods you can obtain all the CoQ10 your body needs.  Consider adding Organic grass fed organ meats (like liver or kidney) to your diet. Other Foods high in CoQ10 Include fish, beef, and tree nuts. 

Other than your brain your heart is the most important organ in your body.  By adding more CoQ10 to your diet you can greatly optimize your heart health. 

Source:  http://blog.lifeextension.com/2011/11/heart-health-benefits-of-coq10.html