SANTA BARBARA, Calif., July 25 (UPI) -- Advances in chemistry can be used to add otherwise insoluble compounds like the dietary supplement co-enzyme Q10 into water, a U.S. researcher said.

Bruce Lipshutz, a professor of chemistry at University of California, Santa Barbara, said CoQ10 is a compound that cells synthesize in every cell, but while the body produces its own CoQ10, that production decreases with age.

CoQ10 -- much of which is in the mitochondria of our cells -- is essential for cellular respiration and adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, production.

"You wouldn't last 30 minutes without CoQ10," Lipshutz said in a statement. "Thus, evolution teaches us that CoQ10 is as important as vitamin C. But who's teaching this to our aging population? Nobody."

People only absorb only 10 percent to 15 percent of CoQ10 in the softgel form, Lipshutz said.