Completed experiment · August 2026

PQQ + Ubiquinol

No clear energy, cognition, or recovery change emerged, but a lower heart rate at a comparable cardio pace created a possible combined signal. Closed as mixed and retained in the routine. Personal experiment record, not medical advice, prescribing, sourcing guidance, or an instruction to copy.

Result: Fifty-one days produced no clear subjective signal. Comparable 45-minute cardio sessions later averaged about 14.5 bpm lower heart rate at essentially the same pace, but the observation cannot be attributed to PQQ and Ubiquinol.

Research Summary

What it is

PQQ is a quinone compound studied around mitochondrial signaling, redox biology, fatigue, sleep, and cognition. Ubiquinol is the reduced form of CoQ10, a fat-soluble compound involved in mitochondrial electron transport and ATP production.

Why it caught my attention

This is one of the cleaner supplement-side experiments for the mitochondrial lane. The claim is not acute stimulation. The question is whether mitochondrial support shows up as lower daily fatigue friction, better training tolerance, or steadier cognitive energy.

PQQ evidence

PQQ has small human studies around fatigue, sleep, and cognition, plus mechanistic work around mitochondrial signaling. That makes it interesting enough to test, but not strong enough to treat as a settled performance or longevity intervention.

CoQ10 context

CoQ10 has a larger human evidence base than PQQ, but exercise and performance effects are inconsistent unless there is a specific need, medication context, or low-status problem. I am using Ubiquinol rather than stacking Ubiquinol and standard CoQ10 so the experiment stays cleaner.

Safety boundary

The practical watch points were sleep quality, anxiety, blood pressure, resting heart rate, gastrointestinal tolerance, and whether the effect was clear enough to justify another daily pill. Closing the experiment and retaining the combination are separate decisions: the result stays mixed even though the pills remain in the routine.

Sources

Experiment Record

Protocol

I ran this experiment from June 30 through August 19, 2026. The logged stack entries were PQQ 20 mg and Ubiquinol 100 mg, both from Nutricost, taken after the daily large meal. The reconstructed record contains 51 daily servings of each.

Hypothesis

The useful result would be subtle but repeatable: better morning energy, less afternoon drag, improved training recovery, or cleaner mental output without feeling stimulated.

Result

I did not identify a clear change in daily energy, cognition, or recovery, and recovery, sleep, HRV, and estimated VO2 max did not provide a corroborating positive signal. The one interesting observation was cardio efficiency: comparable 45-minute sessions later in the run averaged about 14.5 bpm lower heart rate at essentially the same pace.

Interpretation

The cardio observation happened during a period that also included NAD+, MOTS-c, training adaptation, and other changes. It is a real observation inside the combined period, but it cannot be assigned to PQQ and Ubiquinol or used as proof that the combination improved mitochondrial function.

Decision

I am closing the experiment as mixed. PQQ and Ubiquinol remain in the daily stack as a plausible, low-burden background routine, not as a demonstrated personal energy or recovery result.