Fatigue, one of the most common complaints in modern daily life, negatively affects work performance, family life, and social relationships. While it can occur as a result of certain medical conditions, in around one third of cases no specific cause is ever identified. As a result, physical exercise and cognitive behavior therapy remain the most frequent therapeutic approaches recommended by physicians. Looking at the problem from a different angle, a 2023 review examined 60 studies and found that nutrients including CoQ10, L-carnitine, zinc, and certain vitamins can have significant beneficial effects towards reducing fatigue in healthy individuals as well as those with chronic illnesses.
Published in the journal Nutrients, the paper describes how vitamins and minerals support fundamental cellular functions affecting mental and physical fatigue. Some of the 60 studies analyzed employed single nutrients, while others utilized combinations. The majority looked at approaches based on the use of oral supplements, 10 studies administered nutrients intravenously, and 3 gave them intramuscularly. A total of 35 studies examined the efficacy of L-carnitine and CoQ10, with the next most-studied nutrients being vitamins C and D.
Treating fatigue in various medical conditions
Several studies looked at the effects of vitamin and mineral supplements in people suffering from fatigue as a result of various medical conditions. In patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease, for example, high-dose vitamin B1 was found to have a significantly beneficial effect on chronic fatigue.
Vitamin D administration has also been reported to be associated with the improvement of fatigue. In a 24-week trial involving patients with juvenile-onset systemic lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease, supplementing with 50,000 IU of vitamin D per week improved many aspects of fatigue.
The coenzymes CoQ10 and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) have similarly been shown to significantly relieve symptoms of fatigue. A randomized, controlled, double-blind trial found that patients suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome showed a decrease in fatigue after supplementing with these substances for a period of just 8 weeks.
Notably, therefore, in people suffering from fatigue-related syndromes, supplementing with 200 mg per day of CoQ10 plus 20 mg per day of NADH has been proposed as a safe therapeutic approach for minimizing cognitive fatigue and enhancing health-related quality of life. When used alone, CoQ10 has further been found to improve fatigue in conditions such as multiple sclerosis and end-stage heart failure.
Researchers have also investigated the efficacy of a supplement containing branched-chain amino acids, CoQ10, and L-carnitine in the management of fatigue experienced by breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. The significant reduction in fatigue scores seen in these patients suggests that such an approach may be useful in controlling moderate-to-severe cancer-related fatigue.
Treating fatigue in healthy people
The use of nutrients for fighting fatigue has also been investigated in people not suffering from any specific medical condition. In a randomized, clinical trial conducted on 150 elderly subjects, for example, supplementing with 30 mg of zinc per day for a period of 70 days has been shown to significantly reduce fatigue.
When given at a dose of 2 grams twice per day, the use of L-carnitine in the elderly has similarly been found to result in significant improvements in physical and mental fatigue, as well as the severity of fatigue. Supplementing with CoQ10 has also been shown to be effective in reducing fatigue in healthy individuals.
Addressing vitamin deficiency and achieving higher nutrient levels
Consistent with Dr. Rath’s Cellular Medicine concept, the Nutrients review describes how vitamin deficiency is associated with fatigue. One study cited in the review reported that the prevalence of low vitamin D was 77.2 percent in patients with fatigue. The normalization of vitamin D levels over a period of five weeks resulted in a significant improvement in fatigue scores in these patients.
The intravenous or intramuscular administration of nutrients enables the achieving of levels that are not easily obtainable through oral supplementation. Notably, therefore, in a study investigating the effects of intravenous vitamin C on quality of life in cancer patients, significant decreases were observed in fatigue scores following just four weeks of therapy. Other studies have made similar findings.
The effects of intravenous vitamin C on fatigue have also been evaluated in office workers. The results show that, following intravenous therapy, fatigue scores decreased significantly after only two hours and remained lower for a day. Notably, the effects of the treatment were strongest in people with lower baseline levels of vitamin C.
As this Nutrients review demonstrates, effective, safe therapies for treating fatigue do exist. With many patients being told otherwise by physicians, and even made to feel that their problem is ‘all in the mind,’ there is an urgent need for nutrient-based approaches to the treatment of this common problem to become a standard part of clinical practice.