Nutraceuticals and nootropics for anti-aging

Coenzyme Q10 supplements suggested for Alzheimer’s patients

Alzheimer’s Disease is becoming more and more common, probably because longevity is becoming more and more common. Some brain researchers believe that everyone would get Alzheimer’s Disease if they lived long enough, but some people are genetically predisposed to develop the disease faster or earlier in life than others.

Alzheimer’s symptoms are thought to be caused mainly by damage from protein plaques and free radical production in the brain. The plaques are made of beta-amyloid protein that seems to be produced inside nerve cells but accumulates as tangles outside the cells, where it distorts the nerve tissue and probably rips it apart. Metal atoms lodge themselves in the tangles where they catalyze the formation of free radicals that further damage the nerve cells.

It is widely assumed that if one could destroy the amyloid plaques without damaging the neighboring cells, then one might halt or reverse Alzheimer’s Disease. While this assumption has yet to be proven, researchers and self-experimenters are using various drugs and supplements to test this approach. For example, the drug clioquinol is being tried as a plaque-breaker, since it appears to destabilize the plaques by depriving them of the metal atoms that hold them together.

A recent study now points to Coenzyme Q10 supplementation as another possible Alzheimer’s treatment. Although there are no direct studies of Q10 supplements in Alzheimer’s patients, it has been shown that these patients have low Q10 levels in the brain. The reasons are not clear, but might involve the depletion of Q10 by the high rates of free radical production in beta-amyloid plaques. Q10 supplementation has, in fact, been shown to ameliorate Parkinson’s Disease — a disease that is thought to share some biochemical similarities with Alzheimer’s.

Link to a news article:

Coenzyme Q-10 may help treat Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients

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LifeLink carries Coenzyme Q10 in 90 mg capsules.