I’m afraid I’m rather critical about extra vitamins, food-supplements and other miracle cures.
I can’t find anything on the web that takes an independent look at, for example, coenzyme Q10. Just glorious recommendations.
Your thoughts, please.
Is it a fad, or does the stuff help [against tiredness - amongst other things]?
Thanks.
I’d never thought to search for ‘watch’ . Thank you ultrafilter
No problem.
I’m a heart patient. Long story, but a virus attacked my heart and I went into heart failure and stayed there for about 4 years. I was given about a chance in three that I would die right then, and the same odds for dying within a few years, or surviving longer and gaining an increase in my health. Early on, I sought out a support group on-line for folks in my situation. Within that group, many people thought that Coenzyme Q-10 could possibly help repair heart tissue. At the time, it was believed that heart tissue once damaged, cannot repair itself.
There weren’t many studies on CoQ-10 when I first got sick five years ago, but of the few there were, most of the indications were inconclusive. My heart doctors said they couldn’t recommend it, but it wouldn’t harm me to take it. I take 150 mgs. per day. I don’t know if it is responsible in any way for my improved heart function, but I’m not stopping it to find out. Big drawback if you choose to take it–it’s pricey. Wal-Mart has the best prices around.
Wow, ultrafilter, I’ve been looking for a site like that for a while. I second gum’s thanks. Ripley2004, you might find this quote from the site about CoQ10 interesting: “In heart disease, CoQ10 has shown benefits in patients with heart failure - 50mg daily for 4 weeks resulted in improvements in dyspnea, heart rate, blood pressure, and ankle edema.”
People who need the drug Lipitor and its relatives may find that they get muscle aches as side effects. The severity of the aching ranges from mild and ignorable to iso severe as to nterfere with drug compliance. It appears that Lipitor depletes Coenzyme Q10 from muscle. Those people who suffer this side effect do require Coenzyme Q10. I haven’t got the cite on me (shame! shame!), but this is a double-blind-research supported use for this cofactor.
I also agree that Q10 may play a role that is not understood in recovery from serious myocardial diseases.
Heart, skeletal muscle, Q10, I’m seeing a pattern here. Q10 for healthy people without serious muscle disease or any need for cholesterol-busters? Pure and simple bullshit, in my mind.
Yes, thanks to ultrafilter–I’m going to head over to the www.supplementwatch.com site now and take a look-see. Thank you too, skeptic_ev, for the info nugget.
It’s very hard to determine what has contributed to my improved health, because I take seven prescribed heart medications.
Over the years, I’ve read quite a bit about the possible benefits of CoQ-10 and it’s enough for me to keep it on the supplement side of my pharmaceutical regimen.
Sultana, I see your point that healthy people don’t appear to need these extra supplements. I wouldn’t take it unless I felt that I had good reason. I still shake my head when I think of an anti-medication person like me, taking so many pills each day. Ah, irony.
Ah, that’s a shame. Sorry to hear it. Mr. Sultana (Mr. Sultan?) also had a strong aversion to pills when I met him; took me two years to talk him into medicating his migraines. With mild sinus medication. Now five years without a migraine. Sometimes pills are good. But damn, it’s a shame to be sick the way you are, when you used to have a body that you swore never to let pills into. Here’s best wishes for you to get better if possible, and keep on keeping on, all the time.
Glad to hear that Mr. Sultana finally gave in, and medicates to treat his migraines–I’ve never had those thank goodness, but I’ve heard that they are almost unbearable.
This (idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy) hit me when I was 38. I’m now 43. It was as if the ageing process accelerated and I became as someone twice my age–one who is in bad shape at that!
But I[I ]have*improved very slowly.
I use to call this disease terminal. At first I would delight in acquaintances stumbling over themselves verbally, trying to respond after their innocent greetings of how are you? in the months after my diagnosis. Now I call it a chronic condition. I have the perspective of five years lived with it and a much better attitude about my chances of seeing my son --who was six at the time our lives changed–grow up.
It’s an old axiom–but still true. It’s not the situation, but how we deal with it that counts.
I try to keep a positive vibe going–I’m realistic about my limitations–but I’m stubborn as they come, and I’m a fighter.
Thank you sultana, for your kind wishes.