Sixty-thousand to 80,000 years ago Ancient Britons leapt up after a night's sleep on what is now the seabed off the coast of Norfolk. Armed with flint axes and spears they were intent on a day's hunting of mammoths and woolly rhinos, activity that couldn't allow any lapse in concentration.

Even as archaeologists were describing the latest haul of wooden, stone and bone implements recovered from the seabed eight miles off the coast of Yarmouth, other scientists were discussing the role of coenzyme Q10 in the work pattern of the British 21st-century worker.

We are proud that we have the longest working day in Europe, but research shows that nature only endows most employees with the physical energy to work for five hours.

Many workers, already tired after a long commute, use every excuse to procrastinate once in the office. A recent survey of 4,000 office workers has shown that few start work before 9.45am and even then their immediate aim is that first cup of coffee. The average number of cups of tea or coffee drunk per head daily in the office is four. Making each of them ensures a rest from the office routine. The average lunchbreak now takes 32 minutes, but when workers return to their desk at 2pm it's time for the graveyard shift. During the early afternoon many office workers are virtually brain dead, fit only to e-mail friends, glance at Facebook or scan eBay. Around 3pm the office leaps to life again. The survey revealed that the average employee wasn't working properly for 151 minutes of every day. The reason for this intermittent work pattern is that most office workers are overtired: 88 per cent also admitted that one day a week their work is undermined by a hangover.

Some biochemists attribute excessive tiredness to the relative failure of the complex system that controls cell metabolism to adapt to, and cope with, the work pattern of today's office worker. Conversely, sociologists interpret much of office tiredness as a symptom of a desire for escapism induced by boredom with the job, or anxieties about mortgages and debt and a lack of job security.

The biochemists were interested in the possible role that coenzyme Q10, also known as coQ10 (ubidecarenone or ubiquinone) might have in providing energy to cope with modern life.

CoQ10 is found in cells but its concentration varies. Advocates of coQ10 have drawn attention to the variations in its levels in the cells, depending on the organ, the age of the patient and the state of his or her health. Levels are greatest in heart cells, other essential organs and the muscles and skin. People suffering from such diseases as Parkinson's, chronic heart failure and neuro muscular diseases have the least of it.

The concept that if coQ10 is associated with degenerative disease it might help to restore or maintain failing energy so that the permanently exhausted could be revitalised has obvious appeal. Most doctors will remember learning about the role of coQ10 as a factor in the oxidative pathway adenosine triphosphate (ATP), upon which all cellular metabolism depends. They accept that its importance in clinical medicine may be underestimated.

The large numbers of patients who tell doctors that coQ10 gives them the energy to face modern life reinforces these thoughts. Others claim that it has helped people with Alzheimer's, atheroma, cardiac failure, Parkinson's and muscular dystrophies. The only answer to this enthusiasm is that coQ10 it is still under-researched and the crucial question - whether the low levels of it found in the aged or diseased are an example of cause or effect - is unanswered.

When discussing coQ10 in supplement form with patients, doctors usually insist that it shouldn't be used in place of any prescribed medicine. Its value is as a supplement. Nor should it be used by a patient taking Warfarin, or suffering from any disease that results in bleeding or bruising. Boots has introduced a new natural form of coQ10 called Kaneka Q10 and from today is offering a seven-day trial pack to those with a lack of energy attributed to low levels of the coenzyme. There is a money-back guarantee if the patient's energy doesn't improve.

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