statins in patients with heart failure has not been established.
Background
Coenzyme Qlo is the coenzyme for mitochondrial enzyme complexes involved in oxidative
phosphorylation in the production of ATP (Mitchell 1976, Mitchell 1990, Lenaz 199 1). That
bioenergetic effect of CoQlo is believed to be of fundamental importance in its clinical
application, particularly as it relates to cells with exceedingly high metabolic demands such as
cardiac myocytes. The second fundamental property of CoQlo involves its antioxidant (free
radical scavenging) fimctions (Beyer 1990, Villalba 1997). CoQlo is the only known naturally
occurring lipid soluble antioxidant for which the body has enzyme systems capable of
regenerating the active reduced ubiquinol form (Ernster 1993). CoQlo is carried in the blood
with low density lipoprotein and serves to diminish the oxidation of LDL cholesterol in settings
of oxidative stress (Alleva 1997). CoQlo is known to be closely linked to Vitamin E and serves
to regenerate the reduced (active) alpha-tocopherol form of Vitamin E (Constantinescu 1994) as
well as the reduced form of ascorbate (Rodriguez-Aguilera 1995). Other more recently
discovered aspects of CoQ 10 function include its involvement in extramitochondrial electron
transfer, e. g. plasma membrane oxidoreductase activity (Villalba 1997), involvement in cytosolic
glycolysis (Lawen 1994), and potential activity in both Golgi apparatus and lysosomes (Gille
2000). CoQlo also plays a role in improvement in membrane fluidity (Lenaz 1985). The
multiple biochemical functions of CoQlo have recently been reviewed by Crane (Crane 200 1).