A shift in my focus
To better understand the emerging research around CoQ10 and menopause, I spoke to Melissa Olivadoti, Ph.D., CMPP, President at Assisi Consulting LLC and Medical Affairs Consultant to Kaneka Nutrients, global leaders in the production of high-quality ubiquinol.
Melissa says, “When women think about menopause, they often think about managing changes to their sleep, moods, and cycle. But there’s another side to the story – estrogen is a powerful antioxidant that protects the body from free radicals and oxidative stress. Decreases in estrogen can leave women at risk to higher levels of oxidative stress.”
That’s where antioxidants like ubiquinol, a type of CoQ10 – and by extension, gold standard providers like Kaneka Nutrients – are increasingly entering the chat.
Ubiquinol, a naturally occurring antioxidant, is found in almost every cell of the body and in the blood. It plays a central role in the production of cellular energy inside the mitochondria, while also helping to protect cells from oxidative stress. The body naturally produces ubiquinol, but levels decline with age, which is why interest in supplementation tends to increase in midlife.
One thing that’s particularly interesting is the distinction between ubiquinone and ubiquinol. Ubiquinone is the oxidised form of CoQ10, while ubiquinol is the active antioxidant form that the body can use directly. Melissa says, “Levels of ubiquinol decrease with age, because the body becomes less efficient at converting ubiquinone to ubiquinol, and it gets used up faster as it neutralizes higher levels of free radicals over time. Taking a supplement that already contains ubiquinol can be an effective way to support healthy levels in the body.”
If you’re new to the conversation, our guide to ubiquinol vs ubiquinone breaks this down in more detail, including absorption differences and what to look for in a high-quality supplement.
It’s also worth noting that not all CoQ10 supplements are created equal. The quality, stability and bioavailability of ubiquinol matter hugely, particularly because antioxidants are sensitive compounds that can degrade when poorly manufactured or stored. That’s why supplement brands using Kaneka Ubiquinol – a practitioner-recommended formula backed by decades of research – are often top of the recommendation lists.
So, what does the latest research tell us about CoQ10 for menopause?
Over to Melissa Olivadoti, Ph.D., CMPP
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.