by Chris Masterjohn<\/a> One of the main casualties of what we might call the Public\nHealth-Industrial Complex\u2019s war on cholesterol<\/a>\nhas been a molecule called “coenzyme Q10” (CoQ10). Among its many\nbenefits and functions, coenzyme Q10 is a powerful protector of the heart and\nblood vessels. CoQ10 is found primarily in red meats, especially organ meats\nlike liver and heart, and is heat-sensitive, destroyed by overcooking. The\nanti-cholesterol campaign of the government and its associated medical cartels\nhas assaulted the population\u2019s CoQ10 status first through dietary\nrecommendations, and now through the expanding use of CoQ10-lowering drugs,\nmore popularly called “cholesterol-lowering” statins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Red Meat a Victim of Government Guidelines<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February of 1977, the world\u2019s model democracy proved it could\nmaintain the guise of freedom while expanding its totalitarianism to new\nlevels: the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs released\nthe “Dietary Goals for the United States.” From this founding document,\nlimiting saturated animal fats and cholesterol-rich foods became a permanent\npart of government dietary guidelines, casting shame upon diets rich in\nnutritious red meats, organ meats, and egg yolks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1990, the role of free, democratic government in dictating the\ncontents of Americans\u2019 dinner plates became enshrined in law. The passage of\nTitle III of the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990\n(7 U.S.C. 5341) required that the Secretaries of Agriculture and Health and\nHuman Services jointly publish a report entitled “Dietary Guidelines for\nAmericans” every five years. The Act made the report official Federal\npolicy, and the friendly, ubiquitous Food Guide Pyramid would present this\n“official policy” on the side of cereal boxes, to be stared at over\nbreakfast by children everywhere, preparing to receive more benevolent Federal\nadvice about their eating habits at public school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same year, the Third Edition of this, now mandatory,\npublication was released. It explicitly discouraged the consumption of egg\nyolks and organ meats. This and subsequent publications wouldn\u2019t explicitly\ndiscourage the consumption of red meat, but that was the natural and logical\ninterpretation of its disparagement of saturated fat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Fifth Edition,\nreleased in 2000, provided a convenient table of saturated fat content in\nfoods, in both standard and recommended low-fat form, where one could easily\nsee that even the recommended low-fat version of red meat contained twice as\nmuch saturated fat as its nearest competitor\u2014frozen yogurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dispensers of health advice everywhere have depended on these\nauthoritative guidelines and translated them as recommendations to avoid red meat\nif you care about your heart-health. Health-conscious Americans have opted for\nskinless (and tasteless) chicken and turkey, while vegetarians have proclaimed\ntheir vindication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It went under the public radar that red meat happened to be the\nprimary source of one of the most important nutrients to the heart in existence\n\u2013 coenzyme Q10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Wonders of Coenzyme Q10<\/p>\n\n\n\n The functions of\ncoenzyme Q10 range from energy-production to anti-oxidant activity.\nCoenzyme Q10 acts as an anti-oxidant itself (meaning it protects against free\nradical damage\u2014damage induced by unpaired electrons that destroy the body\u2019s\ntissues), and is also necessary for the proper anti-oxidant function of vitamin\nE. CoQ10 is an essential component of the mitochondria (the “powerhouse of\nthe cell”), where it is involved in the production of ATP, the body\u2019s\nfundamental unit of energy, from fats and carbohydrates, and appears to\nregulate the pH of cellular compartments called “lysosomes” where\ndigestion of various materials takes place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The administration of coenzyme Q10 has been shown in controlled\nstudies to improve congestive heart failure, and animal experiments have shown\nit to reduce damage to the heart done by heart attacks and open-heart surgery.\nEvidence also shows that it may be a powerful treatment for lowering high blood\npressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Al Sears, MD, is the Director of the south Florida Center for\nHealth and Wellness, where he\u2019s overseen the treatment of over 15,000 patients\nwhom he has helped successfully reverse heart disease. His book, The Doctor\u2019s Heart Cure<\/em><\/a>(read my review),\ndevotes an entire chapter to the importance of CoQ10 to the heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Sears has found that over half of his patients have been able\nto successfully wean themselves off from their blood pressure medications,\nunder medical supervision, by supplementing with coenzyme Q10. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One woman came into his office on a statin drug and two blood\npressure drugs, suffering from constant fatigue and increasing memory loss.\nSince statins interfere with CoQ10 synthesis, and have been associated with\nfatigue and memory loss, Dr. Sears had her CoQ10 levels tested, and she was\nfound to have lower levels of this nutrient than 95% of the population.\nSupplementing daily with 200 mg of coenzyme Q10 over several months allowed her\nto dump her blood pressure meds, feel “energized,” and recover her\nmemory. Her cardiologist met the good news with an angry outburst, throwing her\nbottle of CoQ10 in the trash!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Sears has found that patients who come to his center with\nheart disease, or various risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes,\nhigh blood pressure, or low HDL, tend to be deficient in coenzyme Q10. He finds\nthat supplementing with CoQ10 makes a dramatic difference in helping these\npatients to recover their energy and cardiovascular health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Sears also cites studies showing that supplementing with\nCoQ10 can lower the death rate of congestive heart failure survivors by up to\n59%, can decrease the frequency of angina pectoris attacks by 53%, and can\ndramatically improve recovery from heart surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eat Red Meat for CoQ10, And Eat it Rare<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coenzyme Q10 is found in the highest amounts in red meat. Dr.\nFrederick Crane first isolated the compound from beef heart in 1957. Beef heart\nand liver are believed to be the richest sources of CoQ10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The USDA\u2019s food composition database has not yet been updated to\ninclude coenzyme Q10, but this very limited table<\/a>\nfrom the Linus Pauling Institute shows beef to have almost twice as much\ncoenzyme Q10 as chicken meat. While some fish have levels approaching the level\nof beef muscle meat, others have much lower levels than beef. Not shown in this\ntable is the much higher level of CoQ10 in the organ meats<\/em> of beef,\nwhich have been an even more direct target of government guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to The Doctor\u2019s Heart Cure<\/em><\/a>,<\/em>\nthe organ meats of grass-fed ruminants (red meat animals) have up to 10 times\nmore coenzyme Q10 than the organ meats of grain-fed animals. Grass-fed meat is\nhard to find nowadays, in large part because, as discussed in “Why the State Hates\nCholesterol<\/a>,” most agricultural subsidies go to large producers\nof grain, which drives down the cost of grain for livestock farmers, distorting\nthe market and making it more economical to feed animals grain than grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Sears has found that, among the hundreds of patients whose\ncoenzyme Q10 levels he has measured, those avoiding red meat tend to have very\nlow levels of CoQ10, and strict vegans have extremely low levels of CoQ10. He\nrecommends people in either category supplement with this nutrient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the common recommendations to cook meat\n“thoroughly,” coenzyme Q10 is heat-sensitive, and is destroyed\nprogressively as meat is cooked. A well-done steak will have dramatically less\nCoQ10 than a rare steak. To obtain maximal CoQ10 benefit, meat should be eaten\nas rare as is tolerable to the diner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, many who dine upon red meat may run into trouble with\nstate laws while trying to maintain their heart health. In my home state of\nMassachusetts, for example, it has been illegal since the 1990s for a\nrestaurant to serve a hamburger cooked less than medium. Out of legal anxiety,\nmost restaurants have gone overboard, and many will serve you a well-done\nburger even if you request one cooked to medium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The New Assault of Government Guidelines: Cholesterol-Lowering\nDrugs<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Public Health-Industrial Complex reached a new level of\nexpansion when the most recent and most successful round of\ncholesterol-lowering drugs\u2014the statins, such as Lipitor, Mevacor, Zocor,\nLescol, and Pravachol\u2014were developed from a compound found in a fungus, red\nyeast rice, that inhibits the synthesis of cholesterol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Actually, “cholesterol-lowering drug” is a misnomer.\nStatins do not act directly on cholesterol synthesis, but inhibit the synthesis\nof a compound called “mevalonate.” As you can see by viewing this flow chart,\nmevalonate is the precursor of an entire class of compounds called\n“isoprenes.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n Isoprenes are chains of a recurring subunit of varying lengths.\nOne isoprene chain is the precursor to cholesterol. A different isoprene chain\nmakes up part of the coenzyme Q10 molecule! Thus, so-called\n“cholesterol-lowering” statins act directly to inhibit the synthesis\nof CoQ10 every bit as much as they act to lower cholesterol levels. This is not\na “side effect,” but a universal and inherent action of the drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One study that Dr. Sears cites found that statins can lower\ncoenzyme Q10 levels by 40%! It would thus be dishonest to refer to statins as\n“cholesterol-lowering” without also referring to them as\n“coenzyme Q10-lowering.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though coenzyme Q10 has had dramatic success in lowering\nblood pressure, reversing congestive heart failure, and improving other\nmeasures of heart health, government recommendations on CoQ10 have been\nnon-existent. The problem with CoQ10 is that it happens to be a natural\nsubstance that isn\u2019t patentable, and therefore has little profit value to\npharmaceutical giants. It is therefore unsurprising that the government half of\nthe Public Health-Industrial Complex has been silent on the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But statins are<\/em> profitable. Very<\/em> profitable. It\nshould therefore come as no surprise that government and its medical minions\nhave had a field day recommending their use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the most recent government guidelines were released in 2001,\nthe NIH and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute released a press release<\/a> expressing\ntheir intention for the guidelines to help nearly triple the number of\nAmericans taking statins from 13 million to 36 million. Issue #001\nof my free newsletter (you can subscribe here)\ndiscussed this phenomenon, referencing an article by Paul Rosch, M.D., that\ndescribed the surreptitious passage of these guidelines that seemed to mirror\nthe middle-of-the-night passage of the PATRIOT Act. The guidelines were\nillegally published in the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/em>\nwithout being published in the Federal Register, the meetings were closed and\nminutes were not kept, public opinion was not solicited, and the scientific\nevidence, if existent, was unavailable for public review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same newsletter, I reported on a recent Norwegian study\npublished in the British Medical Journal<\/em> that found European guidelines\nto be classifying nearly the entire male population of Norway as patients and\ncandidates for cholesterol-lowering drugs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Third Joint Task Force of European and Other Societies on\nCardiovascular Disease Prevention in Clinical Practice in 2003 set guidelines\nfor various levels of heart disease risk. The maximum level,\n“high-risk,” indicated a 5% chance of contracting heart disease in\nthe next 10 years. Amazingly, only 8.5% of women and no<\/em> men over the age\nof 40 were considered “low-risk,” while 22.5% of women and a full\n85.9% of men were considered “high-risk,” requiring “maximal\nclinical attention with no further assessment of risk.” A previous study\nby the same authors found that 75% of all Norwegians over the age of 20 \u2013 the\nage of 20 \u2013were classified as requiring counseling about their cholesterol and\nblood pressure levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Where are all these 20-year-olds and 40-year-olds who are\ndropping dead left and right of heart disease? They aren\u2019t there. The fine\nprint reveals a little trick that the Task Force used to expand the definition\nof “high-risk:” for the “younger” age groups, the\ndefinition of “high-risk” would be expanded from a 10-year outlook to\na 60-year outlook. So a 20-year-old\u2019s estimation of risk is based on his\nlikelihood to contract heart disease by the time he is 80, and a 40-year-old\u2019s\nrisk is based on his likelihood to encounter heart disease by the time he is\n100!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, an entire healthy population is made candidate for\ncholesterol-lowering drugs. Can we look forward to the day when children stare\nat a Food Pyramid on their cereal box that contains a new bottom layer added\nunder 6-11 servings of grains and starches that recommends 10-15 servings of\ncholesterol-lowering drugs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coenzyme Q10: Casualty of the War on Cholesterol<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is the height of irony that the war that has been waged\nagainst cholesterol over the last half-century by the Public Health-Industrial\nComplex has inadvertently waged war against one of the most potent\nheart-protecting nutrients, which shows promise of therapeutic value for heart\ndisease. It was not enough for government to endorse dietary deprivation of red\nmeat and organ meats, the primary sources of this nutrient, but the new front\nlines of the war on cholesterol have caused the attrition of even the body\u2019s\nown synthesis of this heart-protective compound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A nice, juicy, rare-cooked slab of red meat each day may just\nkeep the cardiologist away. And if he\u2019s of the pill-pushing variety, keep him\naway you must, because he\u2019ll probably come bearing statins. And you know what\nthey said in public school about drug dealers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n August 23, 2005<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Red meat has been maligned for decades as an artery-clogging source of cholesterol and saturated fat. Yet a rare-cooked slab of quality red meat may just be your best defense against heart disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n