Research findings

No. 55 CoQ10-γ-Cyclodextrin Complex for Sports Nutrition

This research was reported in 29th Cyclodextrin Symposium (Hoshi Univ., Tokyo, Sep. 6~7, 2012).

Background

Our company has an attractive technology in functional food and personal care fields which raises the water solubility, stability and bioavailability of functional ingredients by using the inclusion property of cyclodextrin (CD).

Recently, coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) have been focused as a notable anti-aging ingredient. Stable powder of CoQ10 was successfully prepared by inclusion with γ-CD. We also commercialized "CoQ10-γ-CD complex" as functional health food and cosmetics materials and observed the significant enhancement of bioavailability of CoQ10 by supplementation of CoQ10-γ-CD complex (* please refer to the newest result of research "54th" of our homepage for details.).

CoQ10 supplementation shows powerful anti-oxidant effect and energy production. Therefore, these benefits are expected to represent reducing of fatigue and increasing of endurance in sports performance. So, in this research the increasing of endurance by CoQ10-γ-CD complex supplementation with high bioavailability was examined in humans.

Appeal points of CoQ10

Study design

32 healthy volunteers aged 20-30 were recruited as subjects and divided in 2 groups. 100mg of CoQ10 or CoQ10-γ-CD complexcontaining 20mg of CoQ10 was daily administered to each group for a month. Oxygen uptakes at 75% of maximum heart rate (VO2@75%HRmax) of each subject before and after CoQ10 treatment were determined as index of endurance.

Measurement of VO2@75%HRmax

VO2@75%HRmax were measured by cycle ergometer (75X II, COMBI Wellness, Tokyo, Japan) with ramp slops 15W/min for males and 10W/min for females.
Following more than 10 mins of rest after warm-up exercise, subjects exercised with no-load for 1min and with gradual loading in pedal rate of 50 rpm. Pedaling exercise was stopped when heart rate of subjects were reached to 75% of the maximum. VO2@75%HRmax were determined by internal analytical instrument of cycle ergometer.

Result

VO2@75%HRmax (ml/min/kg) before and after dosing of CoQ10

Dose: 100mg / day, period: 1 month

Fig. 1. averages of the increasing of VO2@75%HRmax (increasing of endurance)

The increasing of VO2@75%HRmax was 0.3% in CoQ10 dosing group. On the other hand, the increasing of VO2@75%HRmax was 3.75% in CoQ10-γ-CD complex dosing group despite one-fifth of dosage amount of CoQ10 dosing group.
→ The effective increasing of endurance was observed by CoQ10-γ-CD complex supplementation.

→ It is shown that CoQ10-γ-CD complex is useful for the developments of health supplements and drinks as sports nutritions that shows reducing of fatigue and increasing of endurance with high bioavailability.