Parkinson's Disease Health Center

Coenzyme Q10 May Slow Parkinson's

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"While tremendously encouraging, ours is only a preliminary finding and still needs to be proved in a larger study," says Shults, who presented his study at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association. "The next step is to do that, and we're working on a proposal to study the effects of coenzyme Q₁₀ at even higher doses."

One concern: coenzyme Q₁₀ is chemically similar to vitamin K, which is essential for blood clotting. "So it can negate the effectiveness of 'blood-thinning' drugs like Coumadin," says Lieberman. "While there's a study using 3000 mg of coenzyme Q₁₀ to see its effect on ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or "Lou Gehrig's disease"), most of the studies testing coenzyme Q₁₀ on heart disease and other conditions involve smaller doses of around 300 mg." -->