Coenzyme Q10: how much per day and what about statins

Coenzyme Q10 is one of the supplements that brings the most questions into the shop, and it is almost always the same one: «I was told that if I take a statin I need to take CoQ10». It is a reasonable question, because there is a real mechanism behind it: statins lower the Q10 circulating in the blood, and that has been measured in 1,776 people. What is not clear at all is that taking it does what it is sold for.

Here are the figures and the sources, including the ones that cost us sales. In our antioxidants section and in the circulatory system one we stock 23 lines with coenzyme Q10 in the name, and not one of them can carry a health claim for the Q10, because in the European Union there isn't one. That does not make the product a scam, but it does mean we have to be precise about what is known and what isn't. Our three shops are in Spain, in Barcelona and Sant Cugat del Vallès, so the European framework is the one that applies.

In short

• Coenzyme Q10 has no authorised health claim in the European Union. We checked the annex to Regulation (EU) 432/2012 in Spanish, French and English on 2 November 2026: it does not appear once.
• Diet provides about 3-6 mg a day and the body makes the rest. For Germany's BfR it is not an essential nutrient: a healthy person synthesises enough of it.
• Statins do lower blood Q10: standardised mean difference −2.12 across 12 trials and 1,776 participants.
• But the muscle pain blamed on the statin is almost never caused by the statin: across 123,940 patients in 19 double-blind trials, more than 90% of those reports were not due to the drug.
• And the two meta-analyses of CoQ10 for statin muscle pain do not agree: one from 2018 finds improvement and one from 2020, with 7 trials and 321 patients, finds none.
• The EU sets no legal maximum; Germany does: 100 mg a day in supplements, with a warning for pregnancy, breastfeeding and under-18s.
• Ubiquinol is better absorbed than ubiquinone, but the 2026 trial showing it has 12 people, fasting, and is authored by the company that makes the formulation.

What coenzyme Q10 is and why the body makes it

Coenzyme Q10 is a fat-soluble molecule found in the membrane of every human cell, and it does two jobs: it carries electrons in the respiratory chain of the mitochondrion — hence the «energy» label — and it acts as an antioxidant inside membranes. It exists in two interconvertible forms: the oxidised one, ubiquinone, and the reduced one, ubiquinol.

Unlike a vitamin, the body makes it. The BfR — Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, that country's food safety agency — explains it this way in its November 2023 questions-and-answers document: the body produces it from phenylalanine or tyrosine and from mevalonic acid, and a healthy person makes enough. That is why it is not considered an essential nutrient and why there is no reference intake for it, as there is for vitamin D or iron.

Diet supplies little: the BfR estimates 3-6 mg a day on average, with meat as the main source, followed by fish, nuts and some oils. To put that figure in context: any jar on our shelf holds between 30 and 200 mg per capsule, that is ten to sixty times what someone eats in a day. That mismatch is the first reason to read the label properly.

What European law lets you say about coenzyme Q10

Here is the fact that orders everything else, and anyone can verify it in ten minutes.

1. The annex to Regulation 432/2012 has not one line of coenzyme Q10

Regulation (EU) 432/2012 is the closed list of health claims permitted in the EU for vitamins, minerals and other substances. On 2 November 2026 we opened its annex in the three official versions that matter to us — Spanish, French and English — and searched for «Q10», «coenzyme», «coenzima» and «ubiquinone». Zero hits in all three.

It is not an oversight. EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, assessed coenzyme Q10 in 2010 and did so for six effects at once: contribution to normal energy-yielding metabolism (identifiers 1508, 1512, 1720, 1912 and 4668), maintenance of normal blood pressure (1509, 1721 and 1911), protection of DNA, proteins and lipids from oxidative damage (1510), normal cognitive function (1511), maintenance of normal blood cholesterol concentrations (1721) and increase in endurance capacity or performance (1913). None of the six made it into the annex. The BfR itself puts it bluntly: EFSA found the claims scientifically unproven, and that is why they are not permitted in the European Union.

2. What a Q10 jar can legally claim belongs to another ingredient

If a pack in the circulatory section says anything about the heart, the legal wording comes from an added vitamin or fatty acid, not from the Q10. The two official wordings that allow it, copied from 432/2012, are these: «Thiamine contributes to the normal function of the heart» — valid for foods that are at least a source of thiamine — and «EPA and DHA contribute to the normal function of the heart», whose condition is to inform the consumer that the effect is obtained with a daily intake of 250 mg of EPA and DHA, the same figure we explain in our omega 3 post.

The same goes for the word «antioxidant». In the antioxidants category the only authorised sentence that comes close belongs to vitamin E: «Vitamin E contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress». You cannot say that about Q10, even though it is a membrane antioxidant recognised in every biochemistry textbook. The difference between «it is an antioxidant» and «it protects cells from oxidative stress» is, precisely, a dossier nobody has managed to get approved.

3. There is no European maximum either, and where the EU stops, national agencies start

The EU has not set a legal maximum amount of coenzyme Q10 in supplements. Germany has: in 2014 the competent federal authority authorised, by general ruling, up to 100 mg a day in food supplements, with a mandatory warning that pregnant women, breastfeeding women and under-18s should not consume it. It is the same pattern we saw with creatine: when the European figure does not exist, a national agency's figure does the job.

And there is one warning worth reading twice: the BfR notes that interactions between Q10 and coumarin-type anticoagulants have not been sufficiently studied, and it recommends medical advice before taking preparations of more than 100 mg a day. For anyone on anticoagulants that is not small print; it is the reason to ask before buying.

What actually happens with statins

This is the question that brings people to the shelf, so let's take it slowly and in four separate pieces. The first three are solid; the fourth is the one almost nobody mentions.

1. Yes: statins lower blood coenzyme Q10

The mechanism is not a marketing invention. Statins inhibit HMG-CoA reductase, which sits at the start of the mevalonate pathway, and mevalonic acid is also a precursor of coenzyme Q10. Close the cholesterol tap and Q10 drops along with it.

It has been measured. A meta-analysis by Qu and colleagues published in European Journal of Medical Research in 2018 pooled 12 randomised trials and 1,776 participants and found a reduction in circulating Q10 with a standardised mean difference of −2.12 (95% CI −3.40 to −0.84; p = 0.001). It did not depend on treatment duration (Exp 1.00; 95% CI 0.97 to 1.03; p = 0.994) and happened with both lipophilic (−1.91) and hydrophilic statins (−2.36), and with both low-to-moderate (−2.403) and high-intensity regimens (−1.727). In other words: it always happens.

2. But the muscle pain is almost never caused by the statin

This is where the commercial argument breaks. The individual participant data analysis by the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' Collaboration, published in The Lancet in 2022, pooled 19 double-blind placebo-controlled trials with 123,940 participants, mean age 63, with a weighted median follow-up of 4.3 years. Muscle pain or weakness was reported by 16,835 people (27.1%) on statin and 16,446 (26.6%) on placebo: rate ratio 1.03 (95% CI 1.01 to 1.06).

The first year is where the whole effect sits: rate ratio 1.07 (1.04 to 1.10), an absolute excess of 11 events (6 to 16) per 1,000 person-years. In the authors' own translation: only one in 15 of those muscle reports was actually due to the statin. After year one there was no excess at all (0.99; 0.96 to 1.02). And overall, more than 90% of the muscle symptom reports from people taking a statin were not caused by the statin. Creatine kinase rose by a median of roughly 0.02 times the upper limit of normal, which is another way of saying it did not rise.

3. And when you test it person by person, the effect disappears

The StatinWISE trial, published in the BMJ in 2021, did the closest thing to real practice: it took 151 people who had already had muscle symptoms on statins and gave them, in alternating blinded periods, 20 mg atorvastatin or placebo. The mean difference in symptom score between statin and placebo was −0.11 (95% CI −0.36 to 0.14; p = 0.40): nothing.

Withdrawals because of intolerable muscle symptoms were 18 (9%) during statin periods and 13 (7%) during placebo periods. And the most telling figure of all: two thirds of those who finished the trial intended to restart treatment. If the pain a jar of Q10 is meant to fix shows up just the same on placebo, the jar does not have much to fix.

4. The two meta-analyses of CoQ10 and statins do not say the same thing

In 2018, Qu and colleagues published in the Journal of the American Heart Association a meta-analysis of 12 randomised trials and 575 patients (294 on CoQ10 and 281 on placebo) that found improvement in everything: muscle pain −1.60 (95% CI −1.75 to −1.44; p < 0.001), weakness −2.28 (−2.79 to −1.77), cramp −1.78 (−2.31 to −1.24) and tiredness −1.75 (−2.31 to −1.19). With one detail worth noting: the confidence intervals are strikingly narrow for twelve small trials, and the authors used a fixed-effect model. And on the one outcome that does not depend on what the patient reports, creatine kinase, there was no change: 0.09 (−0.06 to 0.24; p = 0.23).

In 2020, Kennedy, Köller and Surkova published the opposite review in Atherosclerosis. From 413 records they selected 8 studies and meta-analysed 7, with 321 patients, published between 2007 and 2016 and ranging from 37 to 76 participants each. Only two of the seven found pain relief. The pooled result showed no benefit: weighted mean difference −0.42 (95% CI −1.47 to 0.62). Nor did it improve the proportion of patients still on their statin: relative risk 0.99 (0.81 to 1.20). Their conclusion, verbatim in the abstract, is that they did not demonstrate CoQ10 to be beneficial either for the pain or for adherence.

The five things CoQ10 is asked to do, and what the evidence answers

Put together, the picture is less tidy than a pack suggests, and also less flat than a headline suggests. Here is what there is, with the largest study for each row.

Two readings, both uncomfortable for whoever is selling. First: what works best is what you cannot sell in a shop, because it is medical territory. Second: what sells — cholesterol, muscle pain, energy — is exactly what has neither a claim nor firm evidence.

Where the evidence is better, and why that is not an invitation to buy

This needs saying plainly, because it is the honest half of the story: coenzyme Q10 does have good results in two settings, and neither of them is «I feel low on energy».

5. Heart failure: the best result of all

A meta-analysis by Xu, Xiang and colleagues published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders in 2024 pooled 33 studies in patients with heart failure. CoQ10 was associated with lower all-cause mortality (relative risk 0.64; 95% CI 0.48 to 0.85; p = 0.002; moderate quality on GRADE), fewer hospitalisations for heart failure (RR 0.50; 0.37 to 0.67; moderate quality), better NYHA functional class (−0.29; low quality), lower brain natriuretic peptide (−91.97; low quality), better ejection fraction (+0.51; low quality) and more metres on the 6-minute walk test (+31.70; moderate quality).

Those are good numbers, and that is exactly why we have to be clear: heart failure is a disease and its treatment is decided by a cardiologist. A food supplement is not sold to treat disease, and we are not going to do it. If someone has that diagnosis, the right move is to take the study to their appointment, not to buy a jar on our recommendation.

6. Blood pressure: −4.77 mmHg and a U-shaped curve

Zhao and colleagues published in Advances in Nutrition in 2022 a meta-analysis of 26 studies and 1,831 subjects with cardiometabolic disease. CoQ10 lowered systolic blood pressure by 4.77 mmHg (95% CI −6.57 to −2.97), alongside a 1.62 µg/ml rise (1.26 to 1.97) in circulating Q10. The effect was larger in diabetes and dyslipidaemia and in studies longer than 12 weeks. Evidence quality was graded moderate for systolic, low for diastolic and very low for circulating Q10.

The most useful finding for practice is a different one: the dose-response relationship is U-shaped, with the 100 to 200 mg a day band lowering systolic pressure the most (χ² = 10.84; p for non-linearity = 0.004). A U means that overdoing it does not improve things: it makes them worse. That is the numerical reason, rather than generic caution, why «more milligrams» is not a strategy.

Ubiquinone or ubiquinol: the 2026 argument

This year's commercial argument is not about dose, it is about form. Ubiquinol, the reduced form, sells at a higher price on the claim that it is absorbed far better. Our range holds four ubiquinol lines among the 23 Q10 products, and every one costs more than its ubiquinone equivalent.

The new trial behind that argument was published in March 2026 in Clinical Pharmacology in Drug Development: Mei and colleagues compared, in a randomised, double-blind, crossover design, a cocrystal ubiquinol formulation against a ubiquinone one. The geometric mean ratios were 2.20 for peak plasma concentration (90% CI 1.59 to 3.04), 2.01 for the area under the curve to the last measurable point (1.51 to 2.70) and 3.43 for the total area (1.47 to 8.00). On paper, double or triple.

Now for what that trial does not say. It is 12 healthy adults, the authors themselves call it a small pilot study, it was run fasting — which is exactly how you should not take it — and the confidence interval for the total area runs from 1.47 to 8.00, a range so wide it admits almost any conclusion. Two of the authors work for the company that makes the cocrystal under test, and the conflict-of-interest statement says there is none. None of this invalidates the result, but it does explain why «twice as well absorbed» is not yet a fact but a promising hypothesis with twelve people behind it. And above all: more Q10 in the blood is not the same as more benefit, which is precisely what has not been shown.

7. What really does change absorption, and it is free

Coenzyme Q10 is fat-soluble. Taking it fasting with a glass of water is the worst possible way; taking it with a meal containing fat is the best, and it costs nothing. A breakfast or a lunch with extra virgin olive oil — whose dose and polyphenols we explain in the olive oil post —, with nuts, with seeds or with an egg does more for absorption than switching chemical form.

One detail confirms it from the shelf itself: several formulations in the antioxidants aisle carry the Q10 dissolved in an oil — medium-chain triglycerides, for instance — or in softgels, precisely because fat is the vehicle. If the manufacturer bothers to add fat, there is not much sense in the customer removing it by swallowing the product on an empty stomach.

How to read a jar of coenzyme Q10 in thirty seconds

We measured our own range on 2 November 2026, crawling four supplement categories page by page. Result: 23 lines with coenzyme Q10 in the name — 13 in antioxidants, 7 in circulatory system, 3 in energy and 1 in hair, skin and nails. Of those 23, only 8 state the milligrams of Q10 in the name; 13 give no figure at all; and 2 print a milligram number that is not Q10: one says «60 pearls of 700 mg», which is the weight of the pearl, and another «2.9 mg of monacolin K», which is the other ingredient. It is the same pattern we have already described with FCC units for enzymes, elemental iron and grams of creatine versus grams of monohydrate: the regulator measures one thing and the label prints another.

Of the 23 lines, 4 are ubiquinol, 5 carry a raw-material brand in the name and 7 are combinations with red yeast rice, berberine, policosanols, garlic or artichoke. That last point deserves its own paragraph, because it is where the law bites.

Four myths, three of them against our own sales

There is no elegant way to put this, so we will put it plainly.

• «CoQ10 lowers cholesterol». EFSA assessed exactly that effect in 2010 and it is not authorised. And there is a twist worth knowing: six of the seven Q10 lines in our circulatory section are combinations with red yeast rice, berberine or policosanols. The cholesterol claim, where it exists, belongs to monacolin K and not to Q10, and EFSA established it at 10 mg a day; Regulation (EU) 2022/860 has since banned monacolins from red yeast rice at levels of 3 mg or more per recommended daily portion, because serious adverse reactions — rhabdomyolysis, hepatitis and skin disorders requiring hospitalisation — were reported at as little as 3 mg a day. In other words: the dose that worked is no longer legal, and we tell the whole story in the red yeast rice post.
• «If you take statins you need CoQ10». The first half is true — they lower blood Q10 — and the second does not hold. The symptom being targeted is, in more than 90% of cases, not caused by the statin; when it is tested blind person by person, the pain shows up just the same on placebo; and the two CoQ10 meta-analyses contradict each other, with the objective marker unmoved in both. If the pain is real and bothersome, the thing to do is talk to whoever prescribed the statin — lower the dose, change molecule, or try stopping and restarting it — not buy a jar in our shop.
• «Ubiquinol is twice as good». The trial that says so has twelve people, fasting, is authored by the manufacturer, and its widest confidence interval runs from 1.47 to 8.00. And even if it were double in the blood, it is the clinical benefit that is unproven in both forms. If somebody wants to pay the difference, let it be knowing this.
• «More milligrams is better». The dose-response relationship measured on blood pressure is U-shaped, with the best band between 100 and 200 mg. Germany caps supplements at 100 mg a day, with a warning for pregnancy, breastfeeding and under-18s. And above 100 mg the BfR asks for medical advice because of the unstudied interaction with coumarin anticoagulants. Few substances have a worse-justified «bigger jar».

Do you need coenzyme Q10 supplements?

For a healthy person eating a varied diet, the honest answer is no. It is not an essential nutrient, the body makes it, there is no reference intake to cover and there is no European health claim promising anything. Stocking 23 lines does not oblige us to say otherwise.

Three situations change the conversation, and none of them is settled at the counter. Heart failure, where the data are best and the decision belongs to the cardiologist. Hypertension in someone with diabetes or dyslipidaemia, where there is a moderate measured effect that adds to treatment rather than replacing it. And the statin muscle pain case, where the first step is not buying: it is checking whether the pain really comes from the statin, because in nine out of ten cases it does not.

If after reading all this someone still wants to try it, that seems perfectly reasonable to us and we will sell it properly: with the dose clear, in whichever form they prefer, taken with fat, and knowing what they expect to notice and how soon. What we will not do is sell it as something it is not. It is the same line we took with collagen, dark chocolate and vitamin C for skin.

The shopping list

If the goal is coenzyme Q10 in a capsule, it is spread between antioxidants — where most of it lives —, circulatory system if you are after a cholesterol combination, energy for the mitochondrial formulas with NADH, carnitine or PQQ, and hair, skin and nails in the nutricosmetic version with collagen and hyaluronic acid, which is the same family as collagens and cartilage.

If the goal is to take the capsule properly, or simply to eat in a way that makes it unnecessary, the list is a different one: canned fish in olive oil, nuts, seeds, oils and vinegars, eggs, pulses, vegetables, chilled foods and, to settle the week in one go, the organic baskets. For the rest of the health shelf there are vitamins and minerals, fatty acids, nervous system, immune system, plants and extracts and superfoods.

And if you would rather read before deciding, the health section of the blog has the posts on vitamin D, omega 3, creatine, pulses and red yeast rice, which is this one's direct neighbour. Anything on promotion is in offers.

Where to buy coenzyme Q10 in Barcelona and Sant Cugat

We have three shops in Spain, and in all three you can do something no website does: bring your jar and read it together with us. We are at Provença 242, 08008 Barcelona (Eixample, between Passeig de Gràcia and Balmes), at Còrsega 78, 08029 Barcelona (Eixample, close to Sants) and at Antoni Bell 2, 08174 Sant Cugat del Vallès (Volpelleres). The phone is +34 683 118 961 and the email is linverd@linverd.com.

The specific service we offer with Q10, and the one Amazon cannot copy, is a thirty-second calculation at the counter: we check whether the pack says ubiquinone or ubiquinol, we look for the milligrams of Q10 per daily dose rather than per capsule, we multiply by the number of capsules in that dose, and we check whether the big number on the front refers to Q10 or to the weight of the pearl. With two jars side by side, the price per real milligram almost always comes out the opposite way round from how it looked. And if the pack contains red yeast rice, we look at the milligrams of monacolin K together, because there is a 3 mg legal limit there.

The second service is shorter still and sometimes ends with us selling nothing: if someone comes in because their legs have ached since they started a statin, what we will tell them is that this question is for their doctor, and why. We would rather lose the sale than sell a solution to a problem that probably does not have the cause it appears to have.

Frequently asked questions

How much coenzyme Q10 should you take per day?

There is no reference intake because it is not an essential nutrient. The doses studied for blood pressure cluster between 100 and 200 mg a day, with a U-shaped dose-response indicating that overdoing it does not help. Germany caps supplements at 100 mg daily. Above that figure, medical advice.

Do I need coenzyme Q10 if I take statins?

There is no firm basis for saying yes. Statins do lower blood Q10, measured in 1,776 people, but the two meta-analyses on muscle pain contradict each other and the largest available analysis, with 123,940 patients, concludes that more than 90% of those pains are not caused by the statin. It is a conversation for your doctor.

Does coenzyme Q10 lower cholesterol?

There is no authorised EU health claim for that effect: EFSA assessed it in 2010 and it was not approved. If a Q10 product says anything about cholesterol, the sentence comes from another ingredient, usually monacolin K from red yeast rice, which has its own legal limit of 3 mg per daily portion.

Ubiquinol or ubiquinone?

Ubiquinol is better absorbed according to a 2026 crossover trial, with ratios of 2.20 and 2.01 for peak concentration and area under the curve. But that is 12 people, fasting, and the study is authored by the maker of the formulation. More Q10 in the blood does not equal more benefit, which remains unproven in both forms.

Can you take coenzyme Q10 with anticoagulants?

Better to ask first. Germany's BfR notes that interactions with coumarin-type anticoagulants have not been sufficiently studied and recommends medical advice before taking preparations of more than 100 mg a day. It is not an established contraindication; it is an uncertainty acknowledged by an authority.

When and with what should it be taken?

With a meal containing fat, because it is fat-soluble. Fasting, absorption is far worse, and the most-quoted 2026 trial was run precisely in the fasted state. Olive oil, nuts, seeds, egg or oily fish in the same meal do more for absorption than switching chemical form.

Where can I buy coenzyme Q10 in Barcelona or Sant Cugat?

In our three shops: Provença 242 (08008 Barcelona, Eixample), Còrsega 78 (08029 Barcelona, near Sants) and Antoni Bell 2 (08174 Sant Cugat del Vallès, Volpelleres). Phone +34 683 118 961. You can bring the jar you already have and we will do the milligrams-per-daily-dose calculation at the counter.

The plain summary: coenzyme Q10 is a real molecule, with a real mechanism and two clinical settings where the numbers are good; and it is, at the same time, one of the least legally supported supplements on the shelf, because the European Union has not authorised a single sentence about it. If you buy it, buy it knowing the milligrams per dose, the chemical form, and the meal to take it with.

We stock it in antioxidants, circulatory system and energy, and in the shops at Provença 242, Còrsega 78 and Antoni Bell 2. If this topic interests you because of cholesterol, the next one to read is the red yeast rice post; if it is about muscle, the creatine one; and if it is about the fat that goes with it, the olive oil one.

This information is educational and does not replace advice from a healthcare professional. Coenzyme Q10 has no authorised health claims in the European Union. Food supplements should not be used as a substitute for a varied, balanced diet or a healthy lifestyle, and they do not treat or prevent disease. If you take statins, anticoagulants or any other medication, or if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, speak to your doctor or pharmacist before taking any supplement.