Between Ubiquinol and CoQ10 which do you recommend using?

The CoQ10 naming convention refers to quinone that has 10 isoprenyl subunits attached to it. You can have other CoQ versions, like one with 5 isoprenyl subunits would be CoQ5. Supplemental CoQ10 comes in two forms: ubiquinone and ubiquinol. Semiquinone is technically a third, but that is only a temporary state in the body. You don't get that one as a supplement. When you hear people talking about CoQ10, they are usually referring to the oxidized version ubiquinone. That's the most common. That has both of the double bonded oxygen atoms in the quinone structure already bound with a hydrogen atom. This means that ubiquinone can immediately go to work in the electron transport chain by donating hydrogens. Ubiquinol is the reduced form, or the one with the two double bonded oxygens open to accept hydrogens. What that means is that ubiquinol can immediately go to work in the electron transport chain by accepting hydrogens. When you hear of something accepting hydrogens, that means it is acting as an antioxidant. This is because they neutralize hydroxyl radicals in the body by absorbing the hydrogen atom. You'll often hear things mentioned as electron donors or electron acceptors. So CoQ10 is constantly going between ubiquinone, semiquinone, and ubiquinol. That's kind of how the electron transport chain works. It is called a redox reaction. ATP synthesis requires electron donors and electron acceptors at different parts in the process. So ubiquinone and ubiquinol are going to have different acute effects because of their redox state. I find ubiquinone to be more stimulating, whereas ubiquinol is less so. This makes sense, as the ubiquinone will participate in oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria, releasing energy in the process that results in increased ATP levels. Ubiquinol should be a better acute antioxidant than ubiquinone. That's because it will immediately go to work as an electron acceptor, reducing free hydroxyl radicals it comes into contact with.

So which one is better? That entirely depends on what you are looking for as an acute effect. Also, CoQ10 is not very bioavailable. Taking Co10 powder, which is always ubiquinone, only results in low amounts getting into your system. This is because ubiquinone likes to form insoluble crystals in its natural state. It also has a LogP of 21, which is way above the magic number of 5 you want to stay under. It is also 863 Daltons, which is above the magic 500 Daltons you want to stay under for bioavailability. So taking powdered CoQ10 will result in only a very small amount actually reaching your system. This is where carrier solubilization comes into play. If you take ubiquinone and dissolve it into d-limonene, that allows it to reach much higher plasma levels than straight crystalline Co10 powder can achieve. This is because d-limonene has a LogP of 4.570, which is below the magic number of 5. So if you can get something to dissolve in d-limonene, it will act as a carrier for that substance into the body. So you can get higher levels of bioavailablity with the ubiquinone form if you have a d-limonene formulation. That why it is in our CoQSol-CF product. Ubiquinol itself is actually more bioavailable than ubiquinone. In fact, it results in 3-4 times as much area under the curve as ubiquinone. So a formula that uses ubiquinol with d-limonene would be the way you can achieve the highest bioavailability CoQ10. That's what our CoQH-CF softgels are. A properly formulated softgel of either ubiquinone or ubiquinol is going to be a lot more effective than powdered CoQ10, with a d-limonene softgel of ubiquinone being the most bioavailable. That being said, I personally just use ubiquinone in softgel form. I like the more acute energy effects that it gives, and after a month of daily dosing your steady state plasma levels should be similar. So I would only use the more expensive ubiquinol softgels if I wanted more acute antioxidant effects.

We wrote a couple good blogs on both forms that go into more detail if you are interested.

https://nootropicsdepot.com/articles/coenzyme-q10-superior-coq10-supplement-over-grocery-store-brands/

https://nootropicsdepot.com/kaneka-ubiquinol-introducing-bioavailable-crystal-free-reduced-coq10-supplement