Modern medicine seems to be based on an "attack strategy", a philosophy of treatment formed in response to the discovery of antibiotics and the development of surgical/anesthetic techniques. Disease is viewed as something that can be attacked selectively - with antibiotics, chemotherapy, or surgery - assuming no harm to the host. This includes chronic illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer and Parkinson disease. The symptoms of the diseases not their basic causes are targeted. Amidst the miracles and drama of 20th century medicine we may have forgotten the importance of host support, as if time borrowed with medications and surgery were restorative in and of itself. Yet, in this age, a patient may be cured of leukemia through multiple courses of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation, only to die slowly of unrecognized thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency. Like the vitamins discovered in the early part of this century, Coenzyme Q10 is an essential element of food that can now be used medicinally to support the sick host in conditions where nutritional depletion and cellular dysfunction occur. Surely, the combination of disease attacking strategy and host supportive treatments would yield much better results in clinical medicine.

Since Coenzyme Q10 is essential to the optimal function of all celltypes, it is not surprising to find a seemingly diverse number of disease states which respond favorably to Coenzyme Q10 supplementation. All metabolically active tissues are highly sensitive to a deficiency of Coenzyme Q10. Coenzyme Q10’s function as a free radical scavenger only adds to the protein manifestations of Coenzyme Q10 deficiency.

The antioxidant or free radical quenching properties of Coenzyme Q10 serve to greatly reduce oxidative damage to tissues as well as significantly inhibit the oxidation of LDL cholesterol (much more "efficiently than vitamin E). This has great implications in the treatment of ischemia and reperfusion injury as well as the potential for slowing the development of atherosclerosis. In keeping with the free radical theory of aging, these antioxidant properties of Coenzyme Q10 may have have clear implications in the slowing of aging and age related degenerative diseases such as Parkinson disease. There is epidemiologic evidence in humans that uniformly shows a gradual decline in Coenzyme Q10 levels after the age of twenty. Again, this may have relevance in conditions such as Parkinson disease.

Until recently, attention has been focused on requirements for Coenzyme Q10 in energy conversion in the mitochondrial compartment of cells or on the antioxidant properties of Coenzyme Q10. New evidence shows that Coenzyme Q10 is present in other cell membranes. In the outer membrane it may contribute to the control of cell growth, especially in lymphocytes (the implications are far reaching). The clinical experience with Coenzyme Q10 in heart failure is good, and it is reasonable to believe that much of medicine should be re-evaluated in light of this growing knowledge.

Coenzyme Q10 or ubiquinone is essentially a vitamin or vitamin-like substance. Disagreements on nomenclature notwithstanding, vitamins are defined as organic compounds essential in minute amounts for normal body function acting as coenzymes or precursors to coenzymes. They are present naturally in foods and sometimes are also synthesized in the body. Coenzyme Q10 likewise is found in small amounts in a wide variety of foods and is synthesized in all tissues. The biosynthesis of Coenzyme Q10 from the amino acid tyrosine is a multistage process requiring at least eight vitamins and several trace elements.

Coenzymes are cofactors upon which the comparatively large and complex enzymes absolutely depend for their function. Coenzyme Q10 is the coenzyme for at least three mitochondrial enzymes (complexes I, II and III) as well as enzymes in other parts of the cell. Mitochondrial enzymes of the oxidative phosphorylation pathway are essential for the production of the high-energy phosphate, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), upon which all cellular functions depend. The electron and proton transfer functions of the quinone ring are of fundamental importance to all life forms; ubiquinone in the mitochondria of animals, plastoquinone in the chloroplast of plants, and menaquinone in bacteria. The term "bioenergetics" has been used to describe the field of biochemistry looking specifically at cellular energy production. In the related field of free radical chemistry, Coenzyme Q10 has been studied in its reduced form as a potent antioxidant.