Today, I want to focus on something many people don’t think about when it comes to heart health - energy.  

Your heart beats about 100,000 times every single day – and often more if you’re very active. 

Your heart is constantly pumping blood to every part of your body, from head to toe.

It’s estimated that the heart may pump up to 10 tons of blood every single day – that’s extraordinary when you think about it. And your heart never rests.

To do this, the heart requires a lot of energy.  

You may be familiar with cell mitochondria – these are the tiny energy factories located in our cells. 

A single heart muscle cell can contain thousands of mitochondria working to produce ATP nonstop.  ATP stands for Adenosine Triphosphate - the molecule that powers nearly every cellular process in the body. 

And that’s exactly where ubiquinol, the active form of CoQ10, becomes critically important, because ubiquinol plays a direct role in the creation of ATP. 

And if heart cells don’t have access to adequate levels of ubiquinol, it becomes very difficult to meet the energy needs of the heart.

Ubiquinol Levels Peak Around Age 20  

Unfortunately, it’s been shown that between ages 20 and 40, the amount of ubiquinol in heart cells typically declines by 40% and continues to slide as we get older.   

This alone is a good reason to supplement with ubiquinol, but this form of CoQ10 does much more for your heart and cardiovascular health.  

Today, we’ll summarize the top 4 ways that ubiquinol can help your heart health.

CoQ10 does two essential things: First, it helps generate cellular energy. Second, it acts as a powerful antioxidant. 

There are two forms: ubiquinone and ubiquinol.

Ubiquinol is the active antioxidant form — and accounts for over 95% of the CoQ10 circulating in healthy blood.  Ubiquinone can be converted by the body into the needed ubiquinol, but this involves a multi-step process. 

And as we age — especially after 30 or 40 — our ability to convert ubiquinone into ubiquinol becomes less efficient. 

So let’s get in to the four ways ubiquinol supports heart health.

#1 Fueling the Heart’s Energy Production

Your heart only has about 10 seconds of stored ATP at any moment. 

That means it must constantly generate energy through mitochondrial activity. Ubiquinol plays a direct role in the electron transport chain — the process that produces ATP.

When ubiquinol levels are sufficient, energy production is efficient, heart muscle cells contract effectively and the heart pumps blood more efficiently.

One measure that heart health professionals use to determine how well heart muscle is functioning is the ejection fraction — which is the percentage of blood pushed out of the heart with each beat. 

In general, a higher ejection fraction rate indicates better function than a lower rate.

Research has shown that supplementing with ubiquinol can help support and maintain healthy ejection fraction levels

#2 Protecting Heart Cell Mitochondria from Oxidative Stress

And because the heart generates so much ATP, it generates significant amounts of these free radicals.

If not neutralized, those reactive oxygen species can damage mitochondrial membranes, cellular proteins, and energy efficiency. 

Ubiquinol sits inside mitochondrial membranes and neutralizes free radicals right where they’re produced.  

In essence, it helps protect the very machinery that powers every heartbeat.

As we age, that antioxidant recycling system becomes even more important, and ubiquinol works to play a key role in protecting against damaging oxidative stress.

#3 Protecting LDL Cholesterol from Oxidation