A comparative study of the efficacy of coenzyme Q10 and propranolol in prophylaxis of migraine headaches: a double-blinded clinical trial

Migraine is a recurrent disease which its definitive mechanism is still unknown. Thus mitochondrial dysfunction and neurovascular damage are two hypothetical underlying mechanisms for migraine headaches. The effectiveness of some possibly effective compounds such a CoQ10 has been studied. In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of coenzyme Q10 in migraine headache prophylaxis.

This study was performed as a double-blinded randomized clinical trial on 112 patients with a diagnosis of migraine who were referred to the Neurology Clinic of Imam Reza Hospital in Kermanshah from March to September 2018. Then the patients were randomly divided into two equal groups (control and intervention). Both groups received propranolol 20 mg twice daily (totally 40 mg/d). The intervention group was treated by CoQ10 60 mg once daily, additionally. Finally, the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of migraine headaches such as nausea and vomiting, photophobia, phonophobia, severity, frequency and duration of attacks were evaluated by Student's t-test, Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon tests.

At the end, it was concluded that CoQ10 supplement of 60 mg daily with propranolol 40 mg daily in patients with migraine headaches improves symptoms more than receiving propranolol 40 mg alone. The results also showed that in the intervention group, nausea and vomiting, photophobia and the severity of headache in patients significantly improved compared to the control group (P values of 0.001, 0.114 and 0.001, respectively). However, the symptoms of phonophobia, frequency and duration of headache attack in the intervention group were not significantly different from the control group (P values were 0.062, 0.853 and 0.106, respectively).

In conclusion considering the main goal of this study, consumption of CoQ10 60 mg daily with propranolol 40 mg daily significantly improves symptoms such as nausea and vomiting, photophobia and severe headache compared to propranolol 40 mg daily. In conclusion, CoQ10 is a suitable choice in patients who do not respond adequately to the standard drug regimen.