**4.1 Coenzyme Q10 absorption among body tissues**

The content of CoQ10 in different body tissues is well studied in human subjects, but there are not enough studies in farm animals or birds. The highest concentration of CoQ10 was found in the most active organs like heart, kidney and liver. The CoQ10 concentration depends on a balance between inputs and outputs. Inputs are the level of CoQ10, which is endogenously synthesized, plus dietary supply and the outputs are the usage by oxidative stress and cellular metabolism. An adult human body has approximately 2 g of CoQ10, where a daily replacement of 0.5 g should be done by both endogenous synthesis and dietary means. Therefore, an average body CoQ10 content turnover rate was around 4 days and dietary supply becomes essential with impairment in endogenous synthesis. The body content of CoQ10 decreased rapidly after the age of 40 years in humans with reduced biosynthesis. CoQ10 supplementation reversed the reduced circulating CoQ10 concentrations in statin-treated subjects as statin inhibits the pathways involved in both cholesterol and CoQ10 supplementation. Various authors recommended daily intake of CoQ10 of about 30–100 mg for healthy people over 40 years and 60–1200 mg for those undergoing an adjunctive therapy for some medical conditions.

#### **4.2 Distribution in body tissues**

The CoQ10 level in human tissues varies with inappropriate nutrition, smoking and different medical conditions such as cardiomyopathy, diabetes and neurological disorder conditions [76]. Similarly in broiler chicken, the concentration of CoQ10 among different body tissues was recorded (**Table 1**) [77].

Among the organelles, larger amount of CoQ10 is found in mitochondria of heart cells (92.3–282.0 mg/kg), followed by liver (22.7–132.2 mg/kg) of cattle, swine and chicken. Being lipophilic, vegetable oils especially rape seed and peanut oils have a high content (63.5–77.0 mg/kg) of CoQ. This again proved that CoQ10 is required more by tissues that are very active.

CoQ10 to cholesterol index (QCI) is increasingly used as a measure for assessment of meat quality. QCI was used as a reliable indicator of oxidative status, and the possible oxidative stresses induced by different food ingredients and consider them as oxidant foods [8]. In simple terms, muscles with higher oxidative stress


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**Author details**

**5. Conclusion**

**Conflict of interest**

Gopi Marappan

ICAR-Central Avian Research Institute, Izatnagar, India

\*Address all correspondence to: gopsgopi72@gmail.com

provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Coenzyme Q10: Regulators of Mitochondria and beyond DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89496*

membrane integrity and improved water retention.

The author declares no conflict of interest.

due to either metabolic activity or food would have a reduction of QCI value. The QCI value was higher in 20 mg/kg supplemented group suggestive of low oxidative stress. Auto-oxidation of CoQ10 at 40 mg of CoQ10/kg increased muscle metabolic activity leading to reduced QCI value [78]. Due to its antioxidant property, CoQ10 supplementation will be helpful in reducing drip loss during meat storage. Supplementation with CoQ10 at 40 mg kgG1 diet improved breast muscle yield and reduced the drip loss in broilers [60]. The reduction in muscle drip loss was attributed to the reduced reactive oxygen metabolites, thereby improving the cell

The role of coenzyme Q10 is widely being studied under various health conditions including cancer and cardiac hypertrophy. Its importance in normal healthy life is quite evident and physicians are prescribing it for oral intake for persons who continuously smoke as well as for those under statin drug therapy. Recently, CoQ10 was widely used in food animals especially broilers, which are highly susceptible to mortality due to ascites/sudden death syndrome as a result of its rapid growth rate.

**Table 1.**

*Concentration of CoQ10 in various body tissues [77].*

*Coenzyme Q10: Regulators of Mitochondria and beyond DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89496*

due to either metabolic activity or food would have a reduction of QCI value. The QCI value was higher in 20 mg/kg supplemented group suggestive of low oxidative stress. Auto-oxidation of CoQ10 at 40 mg of CoQ10/kg increased muscle metabolic activity leading to reduced QCI value [78]. Due to its antioxidant property, CoQ10 supplementation will be helpful in reducing drip loss during meat storage. Supplementation with CoQ10 at 40 mg kgG1 diet improved breast muscle yield and reduced the drip loss in broilers [60]. The reduction in muscle drip loss was attributed to the reduced reactive oxygen metabolites, thereby improving the cell membrane integrity and improved water retention.
