Ubiquinol CoQ10 300mg

Ubiquinol is a genuine product with real measurements behind it, though the marketing goes further than the evidence. These are the questions our naturopaths ask when you bring both boxes to the counter.

A good fit if

• You're an adult with a straightforward health history and you don't take warfarin or any other prescription medicine
• You want the ubiquinol or ubiquinone question answered on the measurements, not the packaging
• You already take coenzyme Q10 with a meal containing fat and want to know whether switching forms is worth it
• A practitioner has recommended ubiquinol and you want to check the strength against the Australian limit
• You're happy to read the label, including the warfarin warning every product taken by mouth must carry

Check with us first if

• You take warfarin. The required Australian label warning says not to take it while on warfarin without medical advice. This applies to ubiquinol exactly as it does to ubiquinone.
• You take a statin. Never stop or change a prescribed statin to take a supplement. Whether coenzyme Q10 changes statin-related muscle symptoms is still unclear, so talk to your prescriber.
• You're having chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Antioxidants may make these treatments less effective, so decide this with your oncology team.
• You take theophylline, blood pressure medicines, insulin or other diabetes medicines. Interactions and added effects have been described for coenzyme Q10 in general.
• You're pregnant or planning a pregnancy. Safety data in people is limited and only from research settings, so this is a decision for your practitioner.
• You're buying for a child or teenager. Australia sets no limit for children for this ingredient, and products in store are made for adults.
• You take 200 mg a day or more. This is where nausea, heartburn and loose stools are most often reported, and splitting the dose usually makes more sense than one capsule.
• You're buying from an overseas website. Those products aren't regulated by the TGA for quality and safety, and the 300 mg Australian limit doesn't apply to them.
• You take prescription medicines of any kind. Check with your doctor, pharmacist or our naturopaths before you start.

• Ubiquinol softgel, 100 mg. Best known for: The starting point, and the strength most one-a-day Australian ubiquinol products use. Absorption: An oil-filled softgel, taken with food that contains fat. At this strength, a single daily dose is within the range your body absorbs reasonably well in one go. Typical use: A first ubiquinol product, or a step up from a 50-150 mg ubiquinone.
• Ubiquinol softgel, 150 mg. Best known for: The Australian mid-strength standard, and a direct like-for-like comparison with a 150 mg ubiquinone capsule. Absorption: The same softgel logic. Labels commonly allow one to two capsules a day, which is where the combined 300 mg limit starts to matter. Typical use: The most useful comparison point on the shelf, because the same brands sell 150 mg of each form side by side.
• Ubiquinol softgel, 300 mg. Best known for: The highest strength Australian law allows in a single daily dose, in one capsule. Absorption: There seems to be a limit to how much coenzyme Q10 you absorb from one dose, so 300 mg in one go isn't 300 mg absorbed. Typical use: Usually taken on a practitioner's advice. It leaves no room for anything else, as 300 mg is the combined cap for ubiquinol and ubiquinone together.
• Ubiquinol inside a combination formula. Best known for: Ubiquinol paired with vitamin K2, activated B vitamins or magnesium in one tablet or capsule. Absorption: Depends entirely on the base. A dry tablet without an oil carrier is a very different thing from an oil-filled softgel. Typical use: Convenience formats. Check the ubiquinol milligrams, which are usually well below a single-ingredient product.
• Ubiquinone (ubidecarenone). The alternative form. Best known for: The original and far more studied form; almost all the older clinical research used it. Absorption: Your body has to convert it on the way through, which it does routinely. Well-dispersed crystalline ubiquinone in an oil base performs strongly in comparisons. Typical use: The default on Australian labels, and the sensible starting point unless you have a specific reason to choose ubiquinol.

Reference values. None. Your body makes its own coenzyme Q10, so it isn't an essential nutrient and the NHMRC sets no Nutrient Reference Value for either form.

Typical supplemental range. Australian ubiquinol products usually come in 100, 150 and 300 mg capsules, and labels commonly say one capsule a day with food, or one to two at the lower strengths. That's a narrower range than ubiquinone, which starts at 50 mg. Nothing on an Australian shelf can go over a maximum recommended daily dose of 300 mg.

Upper level. There's no NHMRC upper limit. Australia's limit is a legal one rather than a nutritional one, and it's quoted word for word below. As a guide to how well it's tolerated, the NIH StatPearls review says side effects are unlikely up to 1,200 mg a day, and notes 100 mg a day or more has been linked to mild trouble sleeping in some people.

Worth knowing. Two things decide how much you absorb, and neither is on the front of the box: the fat in the meal you take it with, and whether you split a large dose. Ubiquinol is also the less stable of the two forms in the capsule, which is why it comes in oil-filled softgels with antioxidants added. Both leading Australian products declare sulfites. What you need depends on your age, diet and health, so talk to one of our naturopaths.

Food first, where the diet allows it.

• No food is a meaningful source of ubiquinol as such: food coenzyme Q10 arrives as a mixture of both redox forms and supplies only a small fraction of body content: average dietary coenzyme Q10 intake is roughly 3-6 mg a day, against 100-300 mg in a capsule
• Meat, poultry and oily fish: the richest dietary sources; roughly 1-3 mg per 85 g serve
• Soybean and canola oils, nuts and seeds: the main plant contributors, around 1 mg per tablespoon of oil

If any of these sound like you, talk to one of our naturopaths or your doctor before you start.

• You take warfarin. Every Australian product taken internally must carry the warning: do not take while on warfarin therapy without medical advice. Warfarin treatment failure has been reported with coenzyme Q10 supplements.
• You take a statin. Never stop or change a prescribed statin to take ubiquinol; the evidence on statin-related muscle symptoms is conflicting.
• You're having chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Antioxidants may make treatment less effective, so you need advice from your oncology team.
• You take theophylline, blood pressure medicines, insulin or other diabetes medicines. Interactions and added effects have been described for coenzyme Q10.
• You're pregnant. There's limited human safety data, so get advice from a practitioner.
• You're breastfeeding. Don't take it; safety hasn't been established.
• Children and teenagers. Australia sets no child limit for this ingredient, but retail products are made for adults.
• You'd take 200 mg a day or more. Nausea, heartburn, diarrhoea and stomach discomfort are most often reported at this level; 100 mg a day or more has been linked to mild trouble sleeping in some people.
• You're allergic or sensitive to coenzyme Q10, carrier oils, softgel shells or sulfites, which these products declare.
• You'd combine a ubiquinol product with a ubiquinone product. The Australian 300 mg maximum is a combined total across both forms.
• You're buying from overseas websites. Those products aren't TGA-regulated for quality and safety, and aren't bound by the 300 mg limit.
• It must not be included in medicines for use in the eye (Permissible Ingredients Determination).
• If you take prescription medicines, check with your doctor, pharmacist or our naturopaths before starting.