How does MitoQ® Mitoquinol work?
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Feb 8, 2022
|1 mins to read
World-first antioxidant that helps to optimize energy and health while powering performance, endurance and recovery
What you’ll learn:
- What mitochondria do, why they produce most of your energy, and how free radicals and oxidative stress affect cellular performance
- Why mitochondrial function and CoQ10 levels decline with age, lifestyle, and stress - and why standard CoQ10 supplements often fall short
- How MitoQ® Mitoquinol works as a mitochondria-targeted antioxidant to reduce oxidative stress at the source and support energy, performance, and recovery
What are mitochondria?
To function at your best, your body needs energy - and around 90 percent of that energy is produced by your mitochondria. Mitochondria are small, bean-shaped structures found inside almost every one of your trillions of cells. Often referred to as the “powerhouses” of the cell, they convert the oxygen you breathe and the food you eat into usable cellular energy that fuels everything from muscle movement to brain function and cellular repair.
As part of this energy-producing process, mitochondria naturally generate reactive molecules known as free radicals. This is a normal and unavoidable part of metabolism. Free radicals are not inherently harmful; they play important roles in cell signaling and immune defense. However, they need to be kept in balance. When free radical production exceeds the cell’s ability to neutralize them, oxidative stress occurs.
Why do mitochondria decline?
Oxidative stress can damage key cellular components such as membranes, proteins, and DNA, contributing to what is known as cellular stress. This forces cells to divert energy away from their everyday roles and toward damage control and stress-response pathways, reducing overall cellular efficiency and resilience. In addition to normal metabolism, cellular stress can be amplified by environmental and lifestyle factors such as pollution, UV exposure, poor diet, inadequate sleep, physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and psychological stress.
To help maintain balance, mitochondria produce their own antioxidant defenses, including coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), which plays a dual role in both energy production and antioxidant protection. These antioxidants help neutralize excess free radicals and support healthy mitochondrial function. However, mitochondrial efficiency and antioxidant capacity naturally decline with age, making it more difficult for cells to maintain this balance over time.
How well your mitochondria function plays a central role in how efficiently your cells perform, how resilient they remain and how your body adapts to the combined effects of aging and everyday living.
Mitochondria-targeted antioxidants
As far as standard care goes, mitochondria are very responsive to lifestyle and diet changes, making it easy to focus on mitochondrial health. Many foundational principles of health and well-being, like exercising regularly and sleeping well, are mediated through mitochondria. For those seeking additional support, emerging technologies and supplements provide targeted ways to enhance mitochondrial function.
How does MitoQ® Mitoquinol help?
While CoQ10 supplements have been widely available for many years, the research shows us that supplementing with CoQ10 or ubiquinol is often less effective than expected. Although some benefits have been noted in scientific studies, the overwhelming body of evidence is just not particularly strong for many of the conditions it is claimed to help. This is mainly down to one important factor: CoQ10 is poorly absorbed.
MitoQ® Mitoquinol is a mitochondria targeted antioxidant that is structurally smaller than CoQ10 with a positive charge, so it’s able to cross the mitochondrial membrane. Once inside the mitochondria, MitoQ® Mitoquinol helps to balance oxidative stress levels and reduce free radical damage.
MitoQ® Mitoquinol’s primary mechanism is to reduce oxidative stress, a key driver of poor mitochondrial function and aging. By neutralizing excess reactive oxygen species (ROS), MitoQ® Mitoquinol has been shown to:
- Reduce oxidative stress by 48%*
- Increase internal antioxidant defenses by up to 36%*
- Protect against mitochondrial and nuclear DNA damage*
- Enhance the cell’s own antioxidant defenses
Beyond its antioxidant properties, MitoQ® Mitoquinol has been shown to reduce vascular stiffness, improve exercise performance, and support cellular repair mechanisms, making it a powerful tool for those aiming to optimize mitochondrial health and cellular longevity.*
Supported by 30 years of research by leading global institutions including Harvard, Yale, Brown, UCLA, Oxford, Cambridge and more, there are to-date over 900 peer-reviewed independent studies and 25 clinical trials into MitoQ® Mitoquinol’s potential benefits.
SCIENTIFICALLY REVIEWED BY
William Stow BSc (Hons), MitoQ Chief Scientific Officer
