Reduced Risk of Cardiovascular Death Twelve Years after Selenium and Coenzyme Q10 Supplementation

by | Nov 12, 2019 | 2018, Cardiovascular Health, CoQ10 (Coenzyme Q10), Selenium

Written by Joyce Smith, BS. A 12-year follow-up study hypothesizes that an intervention with coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and selenium may inhibit the pathogenesis of irreversible, presumably structural, changes preceding cardiovascular events.

vitaminsSelenium, a trace element present in all living cells 1, protects the body against oxidative stress and may also protect against vascular oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction in coronary heart disease 2. Europeans have low dietary selenium intake levels (less than 90 ug/L) 3 whereas the United States, which has a high selenium soil content, has a population with serum selenium levels above 120 ug/L 4.

Selenium contains the selenoprotein thioredoxin reductase that works together with CoQ10 in a metabolic pathway that converts ubiquinone, the inactive form of CoQ10, to ubiquinol, its active form 5. Therefore, a selenium deficiency could jeopardize the body’s ability to obtain adequate levels of ubiquinol in body cells. CoQ10 protects against lipid peroxidation 6 and is anti-inflammatory 7; however after age 20, production decreases continually and by age 80, endomyocardial production of CoQ10 is cut in half 8. Furthermore, in geographical areas where soil and food levels of selenium are low, elderly populations may be at risk of heart disease and premature death due to deficiency of these antioxidants.

A study by Alehagen et al 9 known as the KiSel-10 study, demonstrated how independently living senior citizens, taking a daily combination of CoQ10 and selenium supplements over a four-year study period, maintained significantly better heart function and had significantly reduced risk of death from heart disease in 10- and 12- year follow-up studies compared to senior citizens taking corresponding placebos. The Alehagen team at the University in Linköping, Sweden enrolled 443 elderly Swedish citizens, half of whom received a daily combination of 200 micrograms of SelenoPrecise® high-selenium yeast tablets and 200 milligrams of CoQ10 from Bio-Quinone Active CoQ10 Gold soft-gel capsules; the remaining half received a placebo.

By accessing municipal health records and death certificates, the Swedish researchers were able to continue with participant follow-up and perform both a follow-up 10-year and a 12-year subgroup analysis 10. Even after 12 years, the data revealed a significantly lower risk of dying from heart disease for those in the active treatment group (28.1%) compared to those in the placebo group (38.7%). In addition, Cox regression analysis revealed a significant mortality risk reduction of more than 40% in the selenium and CoQ10 group (HR: 0.59; 95%CI 0.42± 0.81; P = 0.001). In fact, this reduction in mortality risk appeared to increase in magnitude over time and to hold true even for the subgroups of study participants who had diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease or impaired functional capacity due to impaired cardiac function. The mechanisms behind this effect are not yet fully understood and because the study is small, observations should be viewed as hypothesis-generating. The authors hypothesized that “the intervention with selenium and CoQ10 inhibits the pathogenesis of irreversible, presumably structural, changes preceding cardiovascular events.”

Source: Alehagen U, Aaseth J, Alexander J, Johansson P (2018) Still reduced cardiovascular mortality 12 years after supplementation with selenium and coenzyme Q10 for four years: A validation of previous 10-year follow-up results of a prospective randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial in elderly. PLoS ONE 13(4): e0193120. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193120

© 2018 Alehagen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Posted November 12, 2019.

Joyce Smith, BS, is a degreed laboratory technologist. She received her bachelor of arts with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Biology from  the University of Saskatchewan and her internship through the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine and the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She currently resides in Bloomingdale, IL.

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