In this episode of the Natural Fertility Podcast, Dr. Jane Levesque, a naturopathic doctor and natural fertility expert, dives into the complexities of fertility and the role of supplements like CoQ10. In this episode, Dr. Levesque explores the importance of understanding inflammation, or "inflammaging," and its impact on egg quality. She emphasizes the significance of choosing the right form of CoQ10, specifically ubiquinol, and discusses dosage, absorption, and the influence of gut health. Dr. Levesque shares personal insights and practical advice for those navigating infertility, pregnancy loss, or women's health issues. Tune in for expert interviews, case studies, and tips to optimize fertility naturally. Whether you're just starting your fertility journey or have been trying for years, this podcast offers valuable guidance tailored to your unique needs.

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Key Takeways

01:32 The Importance of CoQ10 for Egg Quality

07:08 The Complexity of Ubiquinol Production

10:43 Optimal Absorption and Timing of Ubiquinol

12:15 Optimal Timing for Ubiquinol Intake

18:51 The Energy Demands of Pregnancy

Memorable Quotes

"We need to understand why that egg quality is poor. And usually there is inflammation that is at stake here; the term is known as inflammaging. If you have inflammation in the body, which I promise you, all of us does, even if we're carrying an extra two kilos or so, five to ten pounds, that's inflammation. If we have brain fog, if we have skin issues, if we are tired and our energy is all over the place, our hormones are all over the place, that's inflammation."

"It's not enough just to take the CoQ10 and to take the right form. We need to understand the supplement company, how it's actually produced and how it's protected."

"I never prescribe just one supplement to you guys because let's face it, there's never just one problem."

Connect With Dr. Jane Levesque

Website - https://www.drjanelevesque.com/

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YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@dr.janelevesque7319

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What I will say, it's not just about taking ubiquinol to improve your egg quality. We need to understand why that egg quality is poor. And usually there is inflammation that is at stake here. Something the term is known as inflammaging. If you have inflammation in the body, which I promise you, all of us does do, even if we're carrying an extra two kilos or so, five to ten pounds, versus like 2030, 50 pounds, that's inflammation. If we have brain fog, if we have skin issues, if we are tired and our energy is all over the place, our hormones are all over the place, that's inflammation. Pregnancy is a natural process. So if it's not happening or if it's not sticking, something is missing. After having a family member go through infertility and experiencing a miscarriage myself, I realized how little support and education women have around infertility. I want to change that. I'm Doctor Jane Levesque. I'm a naturopathic doctor and a natural fertility expert. Tune in every Tuesday at 09:00 a.m. i for insightful case studies, expert interviews, and practical tips on how you can optimize fertility naturally. If you've been struggling with infertility, pregnancy loss, women's health issues, or you just want to be proactive and prepare yourself for the next big chapter in your life, this show is for you. Ladies, I want to jump on today and talk to you about coq ten. I get so many questions about supplements, and I'm going to help to break down. I'm going to dedicate some podcasts to specific supplements that I think are worth talking about more than just two or three minutes at a time. And so this is all going to be dedicated to Coq Ten because many of you know that you need to take coq Ten to support egg quality. But to say that you're taking CoQ ten is far too simplistic. We need to understand the form, the type, the brand, the dosage, the timing, the gut microbiome, your ability to actually absorb it. So I'm going to break this down in this short podcast. First things first. There's different forms of coq ten. There's ubiquinol and there's ubiquinone. Those are the two main ones. Ubiquinol is what we find mostly in the body. 95% of Coq ten that we find in the body is ubiquinol, not ubiquinone. So the ubiquinol form is really, really important because like I said, 95% of it is what we find in the body. When it comes to the dosage of what you want to take, it's actually per kilo of body weight. So if you're looking at a twelve milli, if the dose, the ideal dose is twelve milligrams per kilo of body weight, that means if you're around 60 kilos, you need about 720 milligrams. Now you're not going to get most caps are around 100 to 200. So 600 to 800 milligrams is going to be pretty close to that ideal weight. And we're looking for a therapeutic effect, right? So it's not enough just to take the coq ten and to take the right form. We need to understand the supplement company, how it's actually produced and how it's protected. Because it is a lipophilic substance, which means it's fat soluble, but it also means that it has to be created and formed in a certain way to make sure that by the time it gets to us and our body breaks it down, that it can actually use it. And as my mentor says, most of the supplement companies out there that are creating Coq ten are quite rubbish. And so we want to understand what we're taking and why we're taking it and spend money on the right stuff and then stop spending money on the other stuff. Because not only is it not helping you, but sometimes it's actually causing more damage than good. When the supplement company, when the supplement itself has been, it's old, it's oxidized. And so now it's contributing to oxidative damage instead of being beneficial. So we want to take ubiquinol, we want to take it at the right dose, which is the twelve milligrams per kilo. And again, for simplicity's sake, you're probably going to be anywhere between 600 to 800 milligrams. But I have gone up as high as 1200 milligrams. Now. It didn't really depend on the weight of the person, but just more of what we're trying to do, which is revive those ovaries and get the mitochondria, mitochondria level functioning to where it needs to be. And because egg quality is basically dependent on the level of the mitochondria function, ubiquinol is going to be a really big component of that. Now, what I will say, it's not just about taking ubiquinol to improve your egg quality. We need to understand why that egg quality is poor. And usually there is inflammation that is at stake here something, the term is known as inflammaging. If you have inflammation in the body, which I promise you, all of us does do, even if we're carrying an extra two kilos or so, five to ten pounds, versus like 2030, 50 pounds, that's inflammation. If we have brain fog, if we have skin issues, if we are tired and our energy is all over the place, our hormones are all over the place, that's inflammation. So that's a very simplistic way of looking at it. But we want to get to the root cause of that inflammation. And usually there's a toxin or pathogen that's causing that. So giving your body ubiquinol will absolutely give your mitochondria some more fuel, but it's not going to get rid of the pathogen, it's not going to get rid of the toxin, and it's not going to control inflammation as much as we think it will. So you're never just going to prescribe one supplement and then be good with that and assume that we're covering everything, because it's just not how the body works. But like I said at the beginning of the podcast, ubiquinone deserves a lot of attention, because it's a really important supplement when it comes to egg quality and mitochondrial health, and even sperm health as well. We do see in research that men women have a much greater need for ubiquinol than men. So even though men are generally going to be larger humans, so more 80 kilos versus 60 kilos, they're not going to need as much ubiquinol as women. And I think that's really closely related to the fact that we are the ones that are actually growing the baby, and we have a much greater need for that mitochondrial function to be well, because it just takes an insane amount of energy to grow a baby, and energy is ubiquinol, and mitochondria function is in there. So some cool facts about ubiquinol, you guys. Our body actually will make its own ubiquinol, and how much we make changes as we get older. So when there's a decline from mid twenties year by year, how much ubiquinol we make. So that's why when we say, what's the perfect age of reproduction, it's actually those early twenties. Cause you're gonna have the highest level of mitochondria and highest level of ubiquinol. But obviously, that's not going to be the reality for most people. And just to let you know, it's like, why are we supplementing it higher and more when the person is older is because their own production has actually decreased. It's a multi stage process. It requires 13 genes to make ubiquinol and amino acids, vitamin trace elements and trace minerals. And then of course the question is can we actually convert it to usable form? And that's where our microbiome comes in. So our ability to absorb fats and to break those fats down and even how our bugs and microbiome and our short chain fatty acids are terrain, how it's working and interacting with the things that not just we're putting into our body, but to be able to make it. So the gut function becomes very, very important, not just for when you're taking the ubiquinol, but your own system making it and then converting it to the active form. And like I said, that really transfers into our mitochondria health. So the body makes it, but it's not necessarily going to be very efficient. And when I say there's 13 genes that are involved in making ubiquinol, if you've gone down the rabbit hole of testing your genes, you know that you might be having some snp's. Basically your genes aren't necessarily working as they should. So a lot of people have SNP's on different kinds of genes, whether it's your MTHFR gene or your comt gene, like it doesn't really matter. We all have our own unique genetic makeup. And so it's just something to keep in mind that taking any ubiquinol that you get off the shelf or any coq ten off your shelf, what I hope you understand already by now, it's just, it's really far too simplistic to say that and to say that I'm getting it from food, that might be the case. But I have no idea what's going on with your microbiome or with your liver and your gallbladder, and how you're able to produce bile and therefore absorb the fat and break it down, and even your pancreatic elastase or your enzymes, how well you're able to break down the food and absorb it, is all going to depend on your digestive health and then your microbiome health as well. So most supplement companies out there, and I'll tell you, the ones that I use and like and trust at the end, they are, like I said, my mentor says a rubbish. So they have terrible carrier oils, terrible encapsulation processes. That really doesn't protect the ubiquinol from being oxidized. And most clinical trials are using ubiquinone because it has. It's really easy to use it, and it doesn't break down as easily as ubiquinol. And again, the way that I see that is like, more men get put into research than women, because men are simplistic and they don't have hormones that fluctuate. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be studying women. It just is a lot harder. And so, unfortunately, there is a lot of research that's like, oh, that's too hard. It must be the same as this, and it's not. So ubiquinol, they're both lipophilic substances, but ubiquinone tends to be a little bit more stable, and that's why it's gets studied a lot more. But ubiquinol is actually what we want because that's what's found in the body. So it is a lipophilic substance, which basically means it's a fat soluble substance. It needs a thick coating to protect it from oxidation. So if you ever look at the caps, they're the good quality caps. They're like dark, and there's a thick coating. And you can see that there's. You can't see the ubiquinol inside, but it's like a fish oil, but it's not see through, so it's quite dark. And you need to make sure that you have appropriate dietary fats to assist with the absorption of the ubiquinol when you're taking it. And of course, you need to have that good digestive function to break down the foods that you're eating and the fats that you're eating, plus the supplements to essentially have the pancreatic enzymes and the biosecretions to convert the ubiquinol and get it into the plasma, aka your blood. So, let's talk a little bit about the timing. When you take the ubiquinol, it takes about six to take six to 8 hours after taking it for the supplement to reach its optimal concentration in the blood. And it has a half life of about 30 hours. So when you have that good meal with good digestion, six to 8 hours after taking the ubiquinol, going to see the highest concentration. And like I said, because it lasts for 30 hours, that's great. No, it doesn't mean that you're only going to take it once a day, but you can get away with only taking it once a day, depending on how sensitive you are. So the next thing that I wanted to talk to you guys is about the timing. Ideally, you're going to take it in small doses throughout the day to make sure that we can continue to hit that plasma concentration at its optimal level because that blood is always circulating. And so the longer we can keep that plasma concentration, the blood concentration of the good stuff, the better, because essentially blood flow is how we heal. If we can't get blood flow to an area, that area cannot heal. And so what we have in that blood really matters. This is making sure that we have good nutrients in the blood, but also making sure that that blood gets to all the places is really important. So what I find personally and with my patients, and, you know, I have both males and females on it now, I don't usually start patients on ubiquinol right from the start, unless they've already done a bunch of detoxing. And then we're just doing minor cleanup because I find that the gut function is so rubbish. It's so bad that even if I give you this high dose ubiquinol, your body's just not going to be able to use it. And I think that's a waste of supplement because you're just making expensive pee and poop at this time. So I don't introduce it right away, but honestly, it's case by case basis. So the reason that I'm giving you this information is so you can stop grasping the straws and you can start finding it practitioner who's going to talk to you and customize your protocol. And now if you're in part of your journey where you're just learning about all the things that you could be taking, that's okay. You're in an experimental stage. If you haven't started trying, or it's been less than a year, you can totally experiment and take different supplements and see what's going on. But if you've been trying to conceive for 2345 years, you're definitely not in the experimental stage. And if you're still experimenting with supplements or procedures, I'm, I would strongly encourage you to stop experimenting and to start to work with someone who's going to point you in the right direction. And that's going to be done through testing and proper assessment and filling out forms so we can really get to know you as a couple and is each individual and what's going on for each of you. So then we can obviously figure out the root cause. So I say this because I see people like, well, I've been taking coq ten for so long and nothing happened or this practitioner prescribed me. I still need to look at the, the whole person and all of the data and what's going on with the gut, what's going on with their environmental toxins, even looking at methylation pathways, even sometimes genetics to make sure that the form that you're getting and the timing of getting that supplement is going to match to what your system needs versus somebody else. Okay, so it is very individualistic, just like medicine should be very individualistic. And I know it hasn't been where people are just prescribed birth control or adhd meds or antidepressants without even like a proper blood work or proper assessment. I don't think that's medicine. And so I don't want that for you. I don't like, I don't practice medicine like that. And if you're a practitioner listening to me, I hope you're not practicing medicine like that because it just is a huge disservice to the community. It needs to follow data and science and you know, obviously looking at the person and what they need as opposed to just, oh, it sounds like you have poor egg quality. So let's give you coq ten. We got to dig deeper, but let's go back to like the timing of the meals. So ideally you're going to take it in small doses, but you can take up to 600 milligrams at a time. So what I've done lately is I've taken 600 milligrams in the morning and nothing throughout the day when I was in a higher dose. So I played around with like 1200 milligrams and I'm at about 58 kilos. So 1201 hundred, 25 pounds. 130 is where I fluctuate. So 1200 milligrams was quite a bit for me, but I noticed a huge increase in my ovulation and the white cervical fluid production when I was on the 1200. Now of course, I always play on things myself before I recommend it to my patients, just so I know how it feels. I also feel like that ubiquinol helped my body. It gave my body energy to process some deeper buried toxins. So I was very much ready for those infections to come up. I was also, I also started taking glutathione, which helps to bring out infections and taking good binders and, you know, have been doing a lot of gut work and gut function. So the timing wise, what I've noticed is if I take it past 05:00 p.m. because the I, after taking it for six to 8 hours. You see that optimal concentration in ubiquinol. If I take it at 05:00 p.m. at like eleven, I'm still up. Or I am restless in my sleep. So even though I can fall asleep, then I'm super restless. If I take it in the morning and at lunchtime or just in the morning, that big dose, then I'm totally fine. Like, and I noticed it in my data, in my, our ring data that I was able to fall asleep faster and I'm getting deeper sleep and better sleep. So that's just a personal, like, some people will take it at nighttime and they're totally fine while others will take it and they're going to be up all night. So that's just you figuring out how your system works and what works for you and what doesn't. It's a little bit of experimenting. But like I said, for me personally, taking one big dose in the morning has been good. And I like hanging out at that 600 milligrams. Now, we're not trying to get pregnant, but I'm still trying to play around for what else happens with my ovulation, what else happens with my energy, what happens? Because mitochondrial function is essentially everything, right? It's your aging, it's your fertility, it's your mood, it's your sex drives your hormone function. Like, it's related to a lot of things. So I'm deep down the rabbit hole of some ubiquinol and some other things that I'm doing, of course, testing it on myself and my patients. So better to take it smaller doses. But again, no, you can take 600 milligrams at a time. And then I would say you're probably safe to take it up to lunchtime. So like twelve. Because then even six or 8 hours later, you can still start to unwind as opposed to hitting a peak in your energy at that time. And I do find that women have a higher need for the supplement than the males for in, you know, for whatever reason. It's like the reason that I think that is when you're seeing it in research, that women have a higher need is because we are the ones that are growing the baby and it just takes so much energy. Embryo genesis, you know, making a fetus while supporting all the hormones like to make HCG takes an insane amount of energy. And the amount of HCG that you make through the first trimester, I mean, it's through the entire pregnancy, it's a lot. But in that first trimester, how much it's a jumps from week six to week seven to week nine and like it peaks at week nine and starts to kind of Peter, but it doesn't Peter much, you know? So I remember when I was sick in my first pregnancy, I kept looking at like when does the HCD drop? When does it drop? Because I know that's the thing that's making me sick and it's really until week 16 and it's not like it drops quite a bit, but like maybe 20 or 30,000 points. And for me that was enough to feel that I wasn't sick anymore. And then of course there's high demand on methylation because your cells are constantly multiplying and then still trying, trying to repair because there's damage that's always done. So there's just a really high demand on the body. And so I think that's why the need for ubiquinol for women is much higher than it is for men, just to help them prepare for that process. So some of the companies that I like to trust on the Canadian side, bioclinic naturals, their coq ten, the ubiquinol, I always use the 200 milligrams instead of the 100. Just because I dose so high. Like 600 milligrams is the least of the lowest dose that I will give. Again, I have a fullscript account and you can find that all on my social media if you're interested in getting that. On the us side there is two. So there is the life extensions. Ubiquinol, it has some mitochondrial extra support as well. But I'm just interested in the ubiquinol and the reason that I like those two is because they're sourced from Kanika, which is like a japanese seaweed, which has the highest bioavailability. And Doctor Leah Hetchman, one of my mentors, she is working on her second PhD. This is a product that she's been standing by to basically it's like the phase. She's been in the fertility world for 30 years and she doesn't, she's so heavily involved in science and research that when she sees things that are not working, usually it's what's the form, what's the bioavailability, what's the supplement? And like I said, most of the supplement companies out there are rubbish. Even the ones that are claiming to be really great. I have, you know, some of my patients coming up, I love the stuff, it's so great. I always feel amazing. And then you can see the little like, oh, and there's coq ten in the supplement, I've been taking it, I'm like, what kind of coq ten is it? What form, where is it source? Like what's the actual amount? Those are all the questions that, because if we want to be research based and we want to be science based and we need to look at a study and say this is what we're seeing in research and this is what we're seeing clinically, and if those things aren't matching, then something is maybe missing in the research. Something is, something different is going on clinically as well. So anyways, it needs to be from this Kaniga japanese seaweed, which is really, really important and bioavailable and makes it really easy for the supplement to absorb. So the bioclinic naturals on the canadian side does have that. And then on the us side, the same thing. It has that, the life extensions, the super ubiquinol, I think the product is called, and then pure encapsulations also has the ubiquinol that's from the kinica and I believe it's 200 milligrams as well. And so those are the two that I've been using. And what I will finish this podcast with is I never prescribe just one supplement to you guys because let's face it, there's never just one problem. Like I said, depending on where you are in your fertility journey, if you're just starting out and you kind of want to know what's good and what not, and maybe you have a prenatal that you started taking and you're like, oh, I want to try to take this ubiquinol and see if it makes a difference. You have all the time in the world because you haven't even started trying yet. Or maybe you just started and it's a little bit casual, but for somebody who's been trying to conceive and you're over the age of 35 and you feel this timeline like this isn't the time to experiment, I would be investing all the time and energy into figuring out why you can't get pregnant and into lab testing for both you and your partner. And then I would be constructing a supplement protocol based on what we're seeing in the data as opposed to, oh, I heard this podcast that talked about ubiquinol and so that's what I should be taking. That's exactly why I'm producing the content. But I also want to give you the whole picture of like, how I work with patients. And it's not just take this ubiquinol and let's see what happens. There's a lot more to it. And so I don't want you to say that natural medicine didn't work. I tried coq ten and it didn't work. If it didn't work, then we missed something. I believe natural medicine is the only thing that works because, you know, let's face it, pumping ourselves full of meds rarely works. There's a time and place for those things in an emergency type situation. But I hear more and more women and more and more couples going through IVF, going through, you know, just like extensive procedures coming out, feeling much worse on the other side of it all because insurance covered it. It's like, great, I'm so glad that insurance covered it. But that should not be the only reason that you did IVF. We need to understand what the body is trying to tell us, and especially for us women, because we're the first place that the, the baby will grow. And so if we don't have any answers and then we add a pregnancy to that, it's just going to make things more and more difficult, right? It's just going to escalate the situation even more. So I want you to listen to this. I want you to look at things and understand the complexity of what I'm talking about. And of course, ask questions. I love answering your questions through the chat on social. Send us an email. This is why I make the content, because I want to help you fill in the pieces of the puzzle. But please know that it's just one piece of the puzzle. It's not the whole thing. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening to read the full show notes of this episode, including summary, timestamps, guest quotes, and any resources that were mentioned on the episode. Visit drjanelevesque.com podcast and if you're getting value from these episodes, I'd love it if you took two minutes to share it with a friend. Rate and leave me a review@ratethispodcast.com. doctorJane the reviews will help with the discoverability of the show, and who knows, I might share your review on my next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and let's make your fertility journey your healing journey. Our channel.