ubiquinone and Magnesium-Deficiency

Physicians' use of micronutrients to improve symptoms or outcomes in chronic illness has until recently been guided by limited data on the actions of individual agents in vitro or in animal studies. However several recently published clinical trials have provided information about which groups of patients are likely to benefit from which combination of micronutrients. Patients with chronic cardiac failure (CCF), particularly elderly individuals, have several reasons to be deficient in micronutrients including reduced intake, impaired gastrointestinal absorption and increased losses on the background of increased utilisation due for example to increased oxidative stress. Studies of nutritional supplementation in CCF patients have usually concentrated on specific agents. However given that many micronutrients have synergistic influences upon metabolic processes this strategy might merely lead to a shifting of a limiting step. Rather, a strategy of increasing the availability of multiple agents at once might be more logical. The aim of this article is to briefly review the experimental rationale for each of the micronutrients of potential benefit in chronic heart failure and examine the current clinical trial evidence supporting their use.

Topics: Animals; Antioxidants; Ascorbic Acid; Calcium; Carnitine; Copper; Dietary Supplements; Heart Failure; Humans; Magnesium; Magnesium Deficiency; Micronutrients; Niacin; Oxidative Stress; Phosphocreatine; Ubiquinone; Vitamin B Complex; Vitamin B Deficiency; Vitamin E; Zinc

Animals with cardiac disease can have a variety of nutritional alterations for which interventional nutrition can be beneficial. Deviation from optimal body weight, both obesity and cachexia, is a common problem in cardiac patients and adversely affects the animal. Methods for maintaining optimal weight are important for good quality of life in dogs and cats with cardiac disease. Providing proper diets to prevent excess intake of sodium and chloride also is important, but severe salt restriction may not be necessary until later stages of disease. Certain nutrient deficiencies may play a role in the pathogenesis or complications of cardiac disease, but nutrients also may have effects on cardiac disease which are above and beyond their nutritional effects (nutritional pharmacology). Supplementation of nutrients such as taurine, carnitine, coenzyme Q10, and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids may have benefits in dogs or cats with cardiac disease through a number of different mechanisms. By addressing each of these areas maintaining optimal weight, avoiding nutritional deficiencies and excesses, and providing the benefits of nutritional pharmacology, optimal patient management can be achieved.

Topics: Animals; Antioxidants; Cachexia; Cat Diseases; Cats; Coenzymes; Dietary Supplements; Dog Diseases; Dogs; Fatty Acids, Omega-3; Heart Diseases; Magnesium Deficiency; Potassium Deficiency; Taurine; Ubiquinone; Vitamins