Supplementation can be an effective way of supporting your body in maintaining health or healing from injury or illness. Several factors combine to determine whether a particular dietary supplement or combination of supplements will work for you. In general, four interdependent factors affect the success of a program of nutritional therapy:

1. The appropriateness of the nutrients applied to a health condition,
2. The quality of the supplements with regard to purity, potency, and synergy,
3. The ability of the digestive system to take them up, and
4. The ability of the body to assimilate these substances at the cellular level of metabolism.

Bärbel Aldridge considers these four aspects of nutrition every time she customizes a supplement protocol for one of her patients.

Quality of supplements varies widely. It is quite common to find dietary supplements laced with sugar, preservatives, coloring, and other additives she believes to be causative factors in some of the degenerative health conditions she encounters in her practice. Multivitamin and mineral supplements commonly contain substances that interfere with one another when it comes to the body actually making use of them. Some products are synthesized and mass produced by industrial processes that may leave traces of undesirable substances in the product, while others are derived from natural food sources, but sometimes without much regard for the quality of those sources. Bärbel Aldridge trusts select providers of the highest quality nutritionals for the supplements she and her patients rely on for support.

The manufacturers of the nutritional and homeopathic remedies Bärbel Aldridge recommends have invested heavily in developing product lines that include complex formulations designed to address a wide range of health issues. These supplements are exclusively available through health care providers because these products are best used as components in a comprehensive therapeutic protocol, often for a limited time. The development of these dietary supplements has been based on extensive research into the effectiveness and interaction of various nutrients and/or homeopathic agents in addressing specific energetic and nutritional imbalances. Synergy refers to the enhancement of the effectiveness of one therapeutic agent by another. When their effectiveness in combination is greater than their effects separately, they are acting synergistically, the energetic opposite of interference. Using these preparations as the basis for her nutritional protocols enables Bärbel Aldridge to get maximal results in minimal time, an advantage that saves her patients time, money, and suffering.

Assimilability is a key factor in the effectiveness of a customized supplement protocol. The highest quality nutrition won't do you any good if you can't metabolize it. Two primary considerations in Bärbel Aldridge's assessment of a patient's supplementation needs are the condition of the digestive tract (enzymes, pH, physical problems) and the conditions within the systems that the nutrition is intended to correct. Take calcium for example. As an inorganic mineral, calcium may easily pass through the digestive tract unnoticed by a body whose internal processes are suffering from calcium deficiency. This is the case when, to maintain the pH balance in the bloodstream that is critical to life, the body mines the skeleton for calcium, leading to bone loss, even though plenty of this mineral is present in ones diet. Calcium absorption may be supported with bioenergetic therapy, and several of Bärbel Aldridge's post-menopausal patients attribute their gains in bone density to regular sessions of ONDAMED® therapy in concert with a healthy diet and adequate weight bearing exercise. Adequate calcium assimilation can only take place when magnesium, vitamin D and boron are also present, so it is essential to take a balanced formula for calcium supplementation to be effective.

Successful uptake of supplements is dependent on conditions within the digestive tract. Many people suffer the effects of consuming processed foods that lack necessary enzymes and nutrients. Not only does the standard American diet impoverish the body of essential enzymes and trace minerals, it can also cause damage within the intestinal tract that prevents proper digestion and nutrient uptake. This puts a double whammy on your system: inadequate supplies of nutrients compounded with reduced ability of the intestines to take up those that are available. No wonder so many of us are over-fed and undernourished. Bärbel Aldridge always makes sure that the nutrients she recommends are combined with all the other nutritional factors (vitamins, minerals, enzymes, probiotics) needed for a healthy digestive tract so that nutrient uptake can be successful.

Once healthy conditions within the digestive tract optimize nutrient intake and uptake, the next phase of effective nutritional intervention is to make sure that her patients is able to assimilate required nutrients. In nutrition, the cellular level of metabolism is where the rubber meets the road. Having facilitated healing in the delivery system (intake and uptake of nutrients), Bärbel Aldridge’s next task is to facilitate cellular absorption and use these nutrients.

From a bioenergetic perspective, conditions at the cellular level vary from patients to patient. Factors that limit your ability to benefit from the nutrients present in your bloodstream might include parasitism, a condition where microorganisms intercept vital nutrients. Or a burden of toxins or fatty plaques, which the body has been unable to eliminate due to lymphatic stagnation and congestion or biochemical imbalances, might interfere with the exchange of nutrients and wastes either at the intracellular level or within the extra-cellular matrix, where processes that support cellular metabolism take place. Mental, emotional or physical stress can also cause problems affecting the chain of metabolic events that leads to optimal nutrition, as can impaired processes of elimination. Gentle, effective colon irrigation at Healing Ways helps to clear the system of toxic overloads and restore healthy conditions in the digestive tract. Bärbel Aldridge applies a variety of therapeutic approaches to eliminating these interference factors as part of a comprehensive program to optimize nutrition and support her patients in attaining vibrant health.

These three phases of nutrition: intake, uptake, and assimilation, are the interdependent factors that affect the success of supplementation. Without all three functioning optimally, limited benefit to a patients suffering from a nutritional disorder can be realized. Sometimes it's easy to see and correct what has gone wrong when testing suggests that a patients suffers from deficiencies. Sometimes it takes more investigation to understand why someone who consumes a healthy diet still suffers from digestive or assimilative insufficiency. However these scenarios play out, a key factor in Bärbel Aldridge's success in achieving lasting benefits with her patients has been the reliable purity, potency, and synergy of the nutritional products she works with.