Your body has a genetic need for certain amounts and balances of nutrients in order to function efficiently. Fail to get what your body needs and degenerative disease is almost assured. Meet that need – the requirements of your Metabolic Type^® — and you run an excellent chance of staying healthy, trim and energetic for a lifetime.

But, do you really need to take nutritional supplements? Why not just eat a good diet and obtain all you need from your food? This is an important question and deserves special attention. Here's the inside story:

If the food which is available in today's market indeed provided all the necessary nutrients, it might be possible to use only food to obtain and maintain good health. The sad state of affairs however, is that most of the food that is available today is not of the same quality that it was 1,000 years ago, 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago. To compensate for this known fact, even the conservative Journal of the American Medical Association now recommends supplements for all adults.

Our Food — Not What It Used To Be !

For many reasons, our food today is sorely lacking in vital nutrients. Methods of storing, processing and preserving food often severely devitalize the food of its nutritional value. In addition, many of the modern techniques used to grow food faster, larger and on nutritionally depleted soils, have destroyed the original, natural quality of our food supply. What appears to be an ear of corn, or a tomato, is in many cases quite different from the corn or tomato of 75 years ago. Some research into the differences between organic and inorganic foods has shown as much as a 2000% difference in some of the nutrients.

Our food today simply does not contain sufficient nutrient content to meet the demands of our modern lifestyles and to keep us in a state of good health. But suppose that you had the rare possibility of obtaining all of your food from natural, organic sources — beef and (raw) milk and butter from range fed cattle; fertilized eggs and chicken from home-raised, non-chemically fed or hormonally-treated chickens; fruits and vegetables from an organic garden and orchard, comprised of soil brimming with all the nutrients that should be there, homemade bread from whole, natural, organically-raised grains. Certainly this would be an excellent source for your food supply, although for most people it would be impractical, if not impossible, considering the time involved. Even if it were possible, the chances would still be slim that you'd be able to obtain all of the necessary nutrients from your food, particularly if you have a health challenge. There are several reasons for this:

• First, the genetic requirement for nutrients varies tremendously between people. There can be a 2, 5 or even 10 fold difference in the need for certain nutrients. To meet this wide variation in need through just food could be quite difficult.
• Second, a busy, on-the-go lifestyle makes it almost impossible to eat your wonderful, organic foods at all of your meals on a daily basis. Time away from home, eating on-the-go, traveling, all sabotage your efforts at regular, healthy eating.
• Third, if your health is not optimum, the chances are excellent that there's some deficiency in your capacity to digest and assimilate your food. So, if your food is already lacking in nutrients, and if the food you eat is only partially digested, and if what you digest is only partially assimilated, then you'd need to eat an awful lot of food to compensate for the nutrient deficiencies already present in the food along with your faulty digestion and assimilation.

It's important to understand that there's a big difference between just getting enough nutrition to keep you going and in getting optimal nutrition for your Metabolic Type^® on a daily basis. The sky-rocketing rise in degenerative diseases over the last 100 years is clear evidence that most people do not meet their optimal nutritional requirements.

Take Advantage Of Supplements

In view of this predicament, nutritional supplements have a lot to offer – they supply a concentrated form of nutrients which can easily compensate for the lacks in our food supply.

Supplements may also provide many additional advantages as well:

• Help Meet Daily Requirements If you have a lacking appetite, nutritional supplements can provide an excellent means of making sure that you get enough nutrients on a regular basis, without having to eat a large amount of food.
• Conserve Your Energy A major factor in building health is the creation and conservation of energy. The digestion of food, particularly if you consider the large amounts that may be needed to make up for a deficiency, requires far more energy than the digestion of a few nutritional supplements.
• Zero In On Metabolic Processes The various nutrients can be attached to different “carriers” which can greatly assist in getting them to specific sites in your body where they are needed.
• Overcome Food Aversions Supplements are an ideal way for you to get certain necessary nutrients from foods which you might find objectionable in taste, such as liver or bee pollen.
• Compensate For Deficiencies Many people, due to the nature of their work and their fast-paced lifestyles, find it difficult or even impossible to eat whole, natural food. They must often eat out, and may not be able to totally fulfill their Metabolic Type^® dietary requirements. Nutritional supplementation can compensate for such deficiencies in their diet.
• Stimulate, Substitute, & Support Nutritional supplements recommended in our metabolic programs work to stimulate weak areas, as well as to support rebuilding processes by supplying required raw materials. In addition, supplements can substitute for some function in the body that is currently inefficient. For example, hydrochloric acid supplementation can be used if your natural hydrochloric acid secretion is insufficient – a very critical issue. Without sufficient hydrochloric acid, it's very difficult for your body to digest and assimilate valuable nutrients, especially minerals.
• Reduce Reactions If you have digestive weaknesses or allergic reactions to foods, nutritional supplements can allow you to readily and easily acquire nutrients which you may otherwise have considerable difficulty in getting. For instance, if you require certain amino acids available in red meat but you've lost the ability to readily digest and assimilate meat, you could acquire the amino acids in supplement form.
• Neutralize Environmental Adversities Compared to the pure and pristine world of less than a century ago, our modern environment itself poses a challenge to your health. Industrial air pollution, 10,000+ chemicals in our food supply, sick-building syndrome, holes in the ozone layer, chemically-treated drinking water, electro-magnetic pollution from appliances, cell phones, computer monitors, etc., chemical exposures in the workplace and at home, and high stress lifestyles, all place an increased demand for nutrients on your metabolism that may only be met through nutritional supplementation.
• Improve Biochemical Processes Supplements, by providing concentrated forms of single nutrients, can provide delicate, fine-tuning adjustments to your body's fundamental control systems. Your Metabolic Type^® not only needs sufficient raw materials from your diet, but it also needs specific balances of nutrients to activate your enzyme systems which control all of your body's biochemical processes. For example, the Fast Oxidizer Metabolic Types^® need plenty of protein and fat in their diet, but the oxidative processes within the cells must have specific quantities and balances of nutrients in order to function efficiently – something which supplements can often provide when food can't.
• Customize Your Nutrition Finally, and perhaps of greatest significance from the standpoint of balancing your body chemistry, nutritional supplements allow for the capacity to design multi-vitamin / mineral formulas that address the needs of the specific Metabolic Types^®, correcting imbalances in all the Fundamental Homeostatic Controls that are unique in each person.

All Supplements Are Not Equal

One of the stunning revelations of our system of Metabolic Typing^® is that any given nutrient can have opposite biochemical effects in different Metabolic Types^®.

The reason for this is that every nutrient stimulates or inhibits one or more of the body's Fundamental Homeostatic Control Systems (FHC's). Different Metabolic Types^® are dominated by different FHC's which dictate how nutrients behave in one person's metabolism as opposed to someone else's metabolism. And, of course, this is why it's critical for people to obtain the quantities and balances of nutrients that are right for their Metabolic Types^®.

This alone distinguishes Metabolic Typing^® supplements from every other kind of nutritional formulation available today. But one of the great secrets of nutrition that has only been revealed by Metabolic Typing^® research is the surprising fact that the carrier attached to the nutrient(s) also has specific and potent effects on the FHC's -- sometimes even more so than the nutrient itself!

For example, we know that potassium stimulates the parasympathetic side of the Autonomic Nervous System, thereby producing an alkaline shift in an "autonomic dominant" person, and we know that potassium also increases Fast Oxidation, thereby producing an acidic shift in an "oxidative dominant" person. So taking potassium is good for you if you are an acid-type Sympathetic Autonomic Dominant, or an alkaline-type Slow Oxidative Dominant, but bad for you if you are an already alkaline Parasympathetic Autonomic Dominant or an already acid Fast Oxidative Dominant! But which form of potassium is good for you is also an issue specific to your Metabolic Type^®.

A supplement containing potassium citrate, for example, has a completely different effect than one containing potassium chloride. Potassium citrate essentially produces an alkaline effect, but potassium chloride has an acid effect.

To illustrate this highly significant issue, potassium is needed by Sympathetics (who are acid) and Slow Oxidizers (who are alkaline). But whereas potassium citrate is great for a Sympathetic, it's bad for a Slow Oxidizer. The reverse is true for potassium chloride -- it's great for a Slow Oxidizer, but disastrous for a Sympathetic.

The reality is that you can neutralize or even adversely override the benefit of a nutritional supplement if you take it in a form that is wrong for your Metabolic Type^®!

Leading Edge Supplement Technology

The technology of Metabolic Typing^® that has evolved over the last 25 years and provided the revolutionary understanding of the effects of nutrients and their carriers on the body, combined with the ability to create supplements which easily break down, are easily digested and assimilated, and can be readily transported to specific sites in the body, provides the ability to supply each individual with his or her unique biochemical requirements -- namely, nutrients of the right kind, in the right amount, at the right place in the body, at the right time, and in a form which is readily utilizable for any given Metabolic Type^®.

Proper nutritional supplementation is vital to good health and well-being in our world today. It's indeed unfortunate that our modern society, with all of its wonders and blessings in regard to the quality of human life, was in great part bought with the high price of the devastation of our food chain and detriment to our nation's health. Viewed in this light, it's regrettable that nutritional supplementation is even necessary.

On the other hand, through the correct understanding and use of food and nutritional supplementation, you can overcome environmental adversities and claim your birthright to glowing health and joyous well-being.

Metabolic Typing^® provides an answer to the question: "What is right for me?" both in terms of foods as well as through Metabolic Type^® nutritional supplements. There's little doubt that in today's world, nutritional supplements can do a world of good for you. Just be sure you take the right supplements for your Metabolic Type^®. Use them for your good health!