Creating health with CoQ10: we all need CoQ10 for the energy it provides for even the tiniest tasks. But those suffering from health conditions, including weak hearts, breast cancer and migraines, may also benefit.(SUPPLEMENTS: SHOP SMART)(Coenzyme Q10)

Coenzyme Q10 is a vitamin-like substance your body needs to make energy--even the energy to move your eyes and turn this page. It helps people with weak hearts, including those with diseases such as cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Coenzyme Q10 may also reduce the frequency of migraine headaches and lower the recurrence of breast cancer.

Coenzyme Q10 is commonly referred to as CoQ10. Biochemists may refer to it as ubiquinone and ubiquinol. It could easily be considered the "energy nutrient."

HOW IT WORKS: Each of the 70 trillion cells in your body contains hundreds of mitochondria--the tiny structures that break down and burn glucose and fat for energy. Coenzyme Q10 is essential for some of the latter steps in this process, where it shuttles around energy-containing electrons.

HEALTH BENEFITS: Supplemental CoQ10 offers many important health benefits. Here's a brief overview:

* Weak hearts. Japanese researchers first recognized CoQ10's heart benefits in the 1960s and, later, some American and European physicians started using CoQ10 to treat diseases of the heart. In a recent study, Italian doctors noted impressive improvements after four weeks of giving CoQ10 (100mg three times daily) to 21 patients with severe heart failure. CoQ10 supplements, ranging from 60-300mg daily, can significantly improve the heart's ability to pump blood.

* Migraine headaches. Peter S. Sandor, MD, of University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland, treated 42 patients with a history of migraines, giving them either CoQ10 (100mg three times daily) or placebos. After three months, half the patients taking CoQ10 had fewer and shorter headaches and less headache-related nausea. Hardly anyone in the placebo group improved. Results of other studies have been similar.

* Tinnitus. German doctors used CoQ10 (100mg three times daily) to treat 20 patients who suffered from a chronic ringing or buzzing in the ears (tinnitus). By the end of the 12-week study, patients who previously had low levels of CoQ10 benefited from supplements, which reduced tinnitus by 36 percent.