Coenzyme q10 and creatine in heart failure: micronutrients, macrobenefit?

Coenzyme Q10 Supplementation and Its Impact on Exercise and Sport Performance in Humans: A Recovery or a Performance-Enhancing Molecule?

Evidence exists to suggest that ROS induce muscular injury with a subsequent decrease in physical performance. Supplementation with certain antioxidants is important for physically active individuals to hasten recovery from fatigue and to prevent exercise damage. The use of nutritional supplements associated with exercise, with the aim of improving health, optimizing training or improving sports performance, is a scientific concern that not only drives many research projects but also generates great expectations in the field of their application in pathology. Since its discovery in the 1970s, coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) has been one of the most controversial molecules. The interest in determining its true value as a bioenergetic supplement in muscle contraction, antioxidant or in the inflammatory process as a muscle protector in relation to exercise has been studied at different population levels of age, level of physical fitness or sporting aptitude, using different methodologies of effort and with the contribution of data corresponding to very diverse variables. Overall, in the papers reviewed, although the data are inconclusive, they suggest that CoQ10 supplementation may be an interesting molecule in health or disease in individuals without a pathological deficiency and when used for optimising exercise performance. Considering the results observed in the literature, and as a conclusion of this systematic review, we could say that it is an interesting molecule in sports performance. However, clear approaches should be considered when conducting future research.

Role of Creatine in the Heart: Health and Disease

Creatine is a key player in heart contraction and energy metabolism. Creatine supplementation (throughout the paper, only supplementation with creatine monohydrate will be reviewed, as this is by far the most used and best-known way of supplementing creatine) increases creatine content even in the normal heart, and it is generally safe. In heart failure, creatine and phosphocreatine decrease because of decreased expression of the creatine transporter, and because phosphocreatine degrades to prevent adenosine triphosphate (ATP) exhaustion. This causes decreased contractility reserve of the myocardium and correlates with left ventricular ejection fraction, and it is a predictor of mortality. Thus, there is a strong rationale to supplement with creatine the failing heart. Pending additional trials, creatine supplementation in heart failure may be useful given data showing its effectiveness (1) against specific parameters of heart failure, and (2) against the decrease in muscle strength and endurance of heart failure patients. In heart ischemia, the majority of trials used phosphocreatine, whose mechanism of action is mostly unrelated to changes in the ergogenic creatine-phosphocreatine system. Nevertheless, preliminary data with creatine supplementation are encouraging, and warrant additional studies. Prevention of cardiac toxicity of the chemotherapy compounds anthracyclines is a novel field where creatine supplementation may also be useful. Creatine effectiveness in this case may be because anthracyclines reduce expression of the creatine transporter, and because of the pleiotropic antioxidant properties of creatine. Moreover, creatine may also reduce concomitant muscle damage by anthracyclines.