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26.05.2009

Co-enzyme Q10 protects muscles of martial arts athletes at training camp

Serious students of the Japanese martial art Kendo are less likely to incur injuries during a training camp if they take the co-enzyme Q10, write Japanese sports scientists in the British Journal of Nutrition. Supplements containing the co-enzyme [structure below] reduce the level of muscle-damage markers in the blood.

The researchers gave ten test subjects a daily dose of three hundred milligrams of co-Q10 with their breakfast. The eight athletes in the control group were given a placebo. Two weeks after they had started on the supplements, the athletes went to an intensive five-day training camp. And after that the researchers analyzed the athletes' blood.

The level of co-enzyme had quadrupled in the athletes that had taken the supplement. As a result, free radicals in the blood were neutralised more quickly. The blood of the supplement group also contained less peroxidised fats – potentially harmful compounds that are released during intensive physical activity – than the blood of the placebo group. There was also less creatine kinase in the blood of the co-Q10 users – another muscle damage marker.

The most convincing marker that the Japanese found is shown below.

The blood of the supplement users contained less of the muscle protein myoglobin. That indicates that fewer muscle cells were broken, and less of their contents released into the bloodstream.

And finally, the Japanese found fewer white blood cells in the co-Q10 users, which is an indication of fewer serious inflammation processes.

The researchers suspect that the co-enzyme finds its way to the muscle cell membranes, which as a result can take more assault and don't rupture so easily during intensive training.

Source:
Br J Nutr. 2008 Oct;100(4):903-9.