For the Health of It: Bounce!

The Health Benefits of Rebounding

Rebounding is a form of exercise that has been scientifically proven to improve the immune system and flow of the lymphatic system.  Rebounding involves jumping on a mini trampoline; this increases both blood and lymph circulation. The body contains 5-6 quarts of blood, which is circulated by the heart. There is three times more lymph in the body than blood and it does not have a pump like blood does.  We have to depend on our muscles to contract in order to move the lymph.  Yet there is so much of it that if a person’s lymphatic system were to stop functioning loss of fluid volume and swelling tissue would cause death within 24 hours. That is how important circulation of both blood and lymph is for the body.  Blood carries protein, oxygen, nutrients to the organs.  Once inside the organs it exchanges it's nutrients and carries wastes and carbon dioxide away.  Lymph is the leftover blood that leaks from blood capillaries into the tissue that the lymphatic vessels pick up.  Lymph fluid contains water, proteins, salts, lipids, and white blood cells that must return to the blood.  It also filters toxins like pathogens, damaged cells, cellular debris and cancerous cells in lymph nodes on it’s way to the chest where it is connected to a blood vessel and gets dumped back into the blood supply.  

I love how Dr. Samuel West puts it, ’Toxins are carried through the body by blood. These toxins include impurities of what we eat, inhale and ingest.  This causes an increase in blood protein and water to leak out of the capillaries into the interstitial space around the cells causing swelling (edema).  The swelling prevents oxygen from getting into the cells, causing cellular stress which can lead to various forms of diseases.’  Dr. Samuel west was  One of the first doctors in U.S. to talk about the importance of the lymphatic system in the healing process of disease and injuries. He believed that the #1 cause of diseases and pain are a lack of oxygen due to a congested lymphatic system.  Rebounding gets circulation moving.  All  forms of exercise work on the principle of opposing gravity, rebounding utilizes the forces of gravity, as well as the forces of acceleration and deceleration.  When you land on a rebounder, every cell in the body has to adjust to the increased deceleration. When the springs take over and push the body up into the air, then the body has to adjust to a weightless condition for only a moment at a time. But that weightless condition is throughout the entire body regardless of where the cells are.  Having the body adjust to an environment that it is not used to, which is deceleration at the bottom of the bounce promotes the flow of lymph, thereby helping the body flush out toxins and strengthening the immune system and making it more effective.

The way the lymphatic system works is the lymphocytes, the white blood cells, are moved through the body via one-way valves. You’ve got these valves from the bottom of the feet upwards throughout the entire body – and the valves from the legs all point upwards, from your neck they go down, from the arms they go towards the chest. So when you move the body around, the lymph fluid is always moving in one direction, that is towards the collarbones.

It’s here, at the top of the chest, the lymph valves allow the lymph fluid to flow into the bloodstream.  By activating the one-way valves  of the lymphatic system, you cause an increase in lymph circulation by 10-30 times of what the lymphatic system is able to circulate during periods of rest, lymph flow is sluggish and almost zero.  So when you bounce on a rebounder, or jump on the floor, or use a jump rope, the one-way valves open and close about 100 times a minute, circulating the lymph fluid, removing toxins and getting the white blood cells to areas of the body where they need to be.

Without adequate movement the lymph does not move and the lymph vessels can’t even pick up the lymph from the tissue.  This means the cells are left stewing in their own waste products and starving for nutrients and oxygen, a situation that contributes to arthritis, cancer and other degenerative diseases.  

Rebounding is great for the lymph system because the lymph vessels move the lymph in one direction, towards the heart that makes the  vertical up-and-down movement of rebounding more effective than horizontal motion workouts, such as jogging and running.  It’s nice for the joints in general too because the rebounder gets rid of the pressure the joints take when hitting the pavement.  

Poor lymph flow is common in sedentary people; this is one reason why less active individuals are more susceptible to illness. Sedentary people who have poor diets or choose to live on junk food are often unwell because the body sends all the toxins and waste to the lymphatic system. The lymph flow is poor due to a lack of exercise, so toxins accumulate in the body.

Additional benefits of rebounding include:

• Increased lymphocyte activity 

• Physically strengthens muscles

• Helps improve balance

• Improves cardiovascular function

Linda Brooks says gently bouncing on a rebounder for two minutes every hour is an ideal protocol for fighting against cancer. Within just two minutes the entire lymphatic system is flushed, creating a demand for more lymphocytes, including killer T-cells. The white blood-cell count is approximately tripled during this two-minute rebounding session.

Approximately one hour after rebounding, the white blood-cell count returns to normal, so it is time to rebound again to flush out the lymphatic system and to create another army of defensive cells. The object of this pattern is to keep the immune system operating optimally and naturally, hour after hour, day after day.

Rebounding exercise also strengthens each cell of the body so that healing can occur. Every process of every cell is enhanced allowing each organ to do its job more efficiently: digestion and absorption are enhanced; elimination is improved, thus removing more toxins from the body; and the body is relaxed and de-stressed so healing hormones are produced.

She explains that practice of rebounding against cancer is done using the “health bounce”.  Here is an explanation of the health bounce along with other rebounding exercises you can do.  

The Health Bounce

The health bounce is where the feet never leave trampoline. This still has positive effect. You’re getting all the one-way valves to open and close at the same time, increasing the activity of the lymphatic system throughout the entire body. 

The Basic Bounce

This can be done instead of the Strength Bounce below until you develop more balance.

1 Stand on the rebounder with your feet shoulder width apart.

2 Relax shoulders and arms and keep arms slightly bent at the elbow.

3 Gently bounce up and down while keeping your knees slightly bent. Your feet should never leave the trampoline surface more than a few inches.

The Strength Bounce

1 Stand on the rebounder with your feet shoulder width apart.

2 Relax shoulders and arms and keep arms slightly bent at the elbow.

3 Gently bounce up and down while keeping your knees slightly bent. Your feet should leave the trampoline surface approximately 8-12 inches.

High Knees

This is a terrific exercise that gets your heart rate up while working the muscles of your core.

1 Stand on trampoline surface with your feet hip distance apart.

2 Raise your right knee, lower it, then raise your left knee and lower it.

3 Once you feel able, begin doing the knee raises as if you are running in place.

4 Variation: Sprints – go as fast as you can in short bursts.

Butt Kickers

1 Stand on trampoline surface with your feet hip distance apart.

2 Begin jogging in place.

3 When your knee goes up, kick yourself in the tush with your heel.

Jumping Jacks

This will increase your heart rate while working both the inner and outer thighs.

1 Stand on the rebounder with your feet together

2 Jump up off the trampoline surface a few inches while extending arms out, up and overhead

3 Return to the starting position and repeat.

Twisting Jumps

1 Stand on the rebounder with your feet together

2 Jump up off the trampoline surface a few inches while twisting your body to the left.

3 On your next jump, twist your body to the right.

One Leg Jumps

1 Stand on the rebounder with your feet shoulder width apart

2 Begin jumping on one leg for 3-10 bounces.

3 Switch legs and jump on the other leg for 3-10 bounces.

4 Variation: kick out the leg you are not jumping on.

5 Variation: alternate legs every bounce, kicking out non-jumping leg.

Sample Beginner Routine

These are perfect rebounder workouts for beginners.

1 Health bounce for two minutes while breathing deeply.

2 Strength bounce for 3 minutes (do the basic bounce if you don't have enough balance for the strength bounce).

3 Health bounce for an additional 2-3 minutes while breathing deeply.

4 Repeat three times daily.

Sample Advanced Routine

1 Health bounce for 2 minutes while breathing deeply.

2 Strength bounce for 3 minutes.

3 High knees alternating with butt kickers for 3 minutes.

4 10-15 second sprint.

5 Jumping jacks for 3 minutes.

6 Twisting jumps for 2 minutes.

7 10-15 second sprint.

8 Strength bounce for 1 minute.

9 Health bounce (cool down) for 2 minutes.

For stability, most retailers of rebounders sell an optional handlebar to attach to the rebounder to help with balance. For balance you can also place the rebounder beside a wall or in a doorway and using the door frame or wall to help keep you balanced while performing rebound exercise.

I have seen improvement with my patients doing as little as 5 minutes a day of rebounding.  

5 Benefits of Collagen Powder

5 Benefits of Collagen Powder

Have you heard about collagen powder?  It seems like the next big hype but this time I actually feel the hype is warranted.  Collagen can now be found in just about everything — from creams and cosmetics, to powders and pills. As the most abundant protein in the body, collagen is found in your muscles, skin, blood, bones, cartilage, and ligaments. You may want to consider squeezing in an extra serving of this vital protein for several reasons, as collagen is a building block that:

• promotes skin elasticity
• holds together your bones and muscles
• protects your organs
• heals the gut

The good news is that your body produces collagen on a regular basis. But, it does slow down with age. It also slows down with smoking, sun exposure, and an unhealthy diet. If you don't have enough collagen in the body you may start to see wrinkles and sagging skin, or even experience joint pain.
Keep reading to discover five specific benefits you may experience if you take the time to up your collagen consumption.

1. Eases joint pain

As your cartilage weakens and deteriorates with age, you may start to feel stiff, achy joints. It’s possible that upping your collagen intake may help reduce joint pain and alleviate symptoms of arthritis.
In a 2009 study, participants took a collagen supplement for 90 days. Results showed that osteoarthritis symptoms decreased by 40% while the severity of symptoms dropped by an impressive 33%.
In an older study from 1993 with the same collagen supplement, participants with severe rheumatoid arthritis saw a reduced number of swollen and tender joints — 4 out of 60 participants also experienced complete remission. 

2. Reverses skin aging

One of the most well-known benefits of collagen is its ability to promote glowing, vibrant skin. This essential protein provides elasticity to the skin, helping it to appear more youthful and healthy. But as you get older and collagen production declines, fine lines, loose skin, and dryness can occur. 
A study published in 2014 randomly chose 46 of 69 women, ages 35-55 years old, to take a collagen hydrolysate supplement. The rest of the group took a placebo. The women who took the collagen showed an improvement in skin elasticity within four weeks.
The same manufacturer also conducted another study in 2014 with the same supplement, which significantly reduced wrinkles after just eight weeks.

3. Helps build muscle and burn fat

Collagen is a major component of muscle tissue, so it should come as no surprise that it can have a big impact when it comes to building muscle mass. Plus, collagen also contains a concentrated amount of glycine, an amino acid involved in the synthesis of creatine which provides muscles with the fuel needed to power through your workout. So what happens when you add collagen to your workout routine?
There’s not much research on collagen and exercise, but a study in 2015 looked at collagen supplements in 53 older males with sarcopenia, a condition where you lose muscle mass due to aging. After 12 weeks, those who took supplements along with resistance training saw an increase in fat loss and muscle strength more than the placebo group.

4. May reduce cellulite

Besides keeping your skin healthy and glowing, collagen may also help improve the appearance of stubborn cellulite. Cellulite is when the layer of fat under the skin pushes up against the connective tissue, creating a dimpled or lumpy appearance on the skin.
Another study was sponsored in 2015 by manufacturers to see what collagen would do for cellulite. They randomly assigned 105 women, ages 24-50, to take collagen for six months. Those who did demonstrated a clear improvement in skin texture.  Yet cellulite is incredibly common — an estimated 80 to 90% of women have it. It’s a natural part of aging and skin formation and not a cause for concern.

5. Improves digestive health

Collagen is in the gut’s connective tissue and can help support and strengthen the protective lining of your digestive tract. This is critically important because alterations in the barrier function of your intestine, also known as leaky gut syndrome, can allow particles to pass into the bloodstream. This may result in inflammation.
In fact, an older study from 2003 looked at 170 individuals with inflammatory bowel disease and found that they were more likely to have lower levels of serum collagen. So the current theory is that by increasing your intake of collagen, you could help build up the tissues that line your gastrointestinal tract and promote better gut health. 

Here are a few easy ways to kick up your collagen intake:

1. Experiment with bone broth

Bone broth is made by simmering bones to help extract the flavor and beneficial nutrients. Not only is it an excellent source of collagen, but it’s also tasty and easy to add to your diet by using it to make soups and stews, whole grains like rice and quinoa, and even to moisten leftovers. You can easily make bone broth at home, or save time by purchasing it in powder form. The brand I love for powdered bone broth and carry in the office for your convenience is Organixx.  

2. Try out powdered gelatin

Gelatin is essentially the cooked form of collagen, and powdered gelatin can be a quick and convenient way to bump up your collagen consumption. It can be mixed into any liquid, including soups, stews, and broths. You can also enjoy it to satisfy your sweet tooth by making homemade Jell-O or natural fruit snacks.

3. Supplement with collagen peptides

Collagen peptides are another easy option to get your fix of this important amino acid. Most brands sell hydrolyzed collagen peptides, which means that the amino acids in collagen have been broken down so that they’re more easily digested and absorbed.
Collagen powder can also be added to smoothies, hot beverages, or baked goods to pump some extra protein into your day. The collagen powder I recommend the most is also from Organixx which we also have in the office.  

There is also ways to get collagen in through your daily diet. If you want to consume collagen naturally, eat a well-balanced, high-protein diet that includes animal products. Collagen is in beef, chicken, fish, and egg whites.

But you don’t want to eat too much protein, either. Your body doesn’t tell the collagen where to go. Instead, it distributes the collagen like it would any other nutrient. So taking collagen supplements works much like exercise — it’s difficult to target a specific need, but increasing your intake could still have benefits.

Benefits of Drinking Lime Water

Many of my patients have heard me tell them to drink warm lime water in the morning. Sometimes I tell them to add apple cider vinegar in the morning to it as well depending on why I want them to take it. I finally decided to take the time to write in detail why I think warm lime water in the morning is so beneficial.

Lime water and lemon water are very similar for their benefits. I just find in the office more people test better for lime water than lemon water. Maybe it’s because they are already getting benefits from lemon because we tend to use it more in our cooking than lime. Limes are higher in calcium and vitamin A and these benefits:
• Boosts immune system
• Liver and detox support
• Improves digestion and bowel movements
• Helps with heart burn
• Decreases inflammation to help with joint problems

Boosts immune system - If you want to stay healthy, sip on lime juice throughout the day. The vitamin C and antioxidants in limes can strengthen your immune system and help your body fight off infections such as the cold and flu virus. It may also shorten the duration of an illness.

Liver and detox support – The vitamin C in limes helps the liver to produce glutathione, a regenerative antioxidant that helps the liver process and eliminate toxins.

Improves digestion – Drinking lime water improves digestion. Limes are acidic and they help saliva break down food for better digestion. Additionally, flavonoids in limes stimulate secretion of digestive juices. If you suffer from constipation, the acidity of limes can clear the excretory system and stimulate bowel activity.

Heartburn or acid reflux - drinking a glass of warm water with 2 teaspoons of lime juice about 30 minutes before meals may help prevent reflux symptoms.

Arthritis, gout, and other joint problems are caused by inflammation. Vitamin C can reduce the level of inflammation in your body, so adding lime juice to water can relieve symptoms of arthritis and similar conditions that cause joint pain and stiffness. A study from the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases reported that those who consumed the least amount of vitamin C were more than three times as likely to develop arthritis. Limes can also reduce uric acid levels. Uric acid is a waste product the body produces when breaking down foods that contain purines, like meat, liver, mushrooms, and dried beans. High levels of uric acid can cause gout.

Limes are also a good source of:
• potassium
• vitamins A, B, C, and D
• calcium
• magnesium

If it’s not easy for you to always have a fresh, organic lime on hand to squeeze into your water we have organic essential lime oil in the office that is easy to carry anywhere with you and get the same great benefits. Start adding lime to your drinking water today and see what happens!

Eat This: Bone Broth

There’s a South American Proverb that says, “A good broth can raise the dead.” There is a reason why we eat soup when we are sick. A real bone broth has been simmering for hours to leach all the minerals and vitamins out of the bone making it liquid gold for our immune system. There are other great benefits to drinking bone broth on a daily basis.

If you slow cook the bone it draws out the collagen, marrow, and other healing elements from the bones, including amino acids, minerals, glycine, and gelatin—which helps heal the gut and reduce inflammation for the whole body.

Collagen, the protein matrix in bones, tendons, ligaments, and other flexible tissues, is broken down during the cooking process into another protein called gelatin. Gelatin is the reason properly prepared broth congeals in the fridge. This gelatin has in it the raw materials to rebuild your own connective tissue, especially tendons (which connect muscles to bones) and ligaments (which connect bones to each other).

Another benefit of bone broth for joint health comes from glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), a family of carbohydrates found in bones and connective tissue that show interesting effects in reducing joint pain. One of these GAGs, hyaluronic acid, is an effective treatment for osteoarthritis.



Bone broth helps in digestion by containing glycine, because it stimulates the production of stomach acid. Who may need more stomach acid, you ask? People who have acid reflux do because acid reflux is actually a problem of too little stomach acid, not too much. By prompting your body to secrete more stomach acid, glycine can help prevent or treat this painful and potentially dangerous problem. This makes bone broth a delicious supplemental food for anyone suffering from acid reflux, IBS, or FODMAPS intolerance.

Adding to its metabolic virtues, glycine is also an important component of bile acid, which is necessary for fat digestion in the small intestine, and also helps maintain healthy blood cholesterol levels. Especially for people who are new to Paleo and switching from a carb-based to a fat-based diet, this has the potential to keep the digestive process running a lot more smoothly.

Glycine isn’t the only useful protein for gut health, either. glutamine, another amino acid found in bone broth, is a natural remedy for “leaky gut,” that unpleasant and dangerous condition where the barrier between your gut and the rest of your body isn’t working properly, allowing molecules that should stay inside the gut to cross over into the bloodstream and potentially set of a cascade of autoimmune reactions. Glutamine helps maintain the function of the intestinal wall, preventing this damage from occurring.

Glycine also helps in detoxification because it supports the liver in removing anything dangerous from the body.
Glycine is also necessary for the synthesis of glutathione and uric acid, the body’s most important endogenous antioxidants.

Yet another detox-related benefit is that glycine helps clear out excess methionine, another amino acid found in large quantities in eggs and muscle meat. Methionine is an essential amino acid, but too much of it can raise blood levels of another amino acid called homocysteine, and the process of breaking down homocysteine increases the body’s need for B vitamins (thus increasing the risk of B vitamin deficiency even if your intake is adequate). Glycine from broths and cartilage can help break down homocysteine without the need for B vitamins.

Bone broth is extremely high in minerals. Bones from land animals are rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus, and fish bones also contain iodine. We know that at least some of this mineral content leaches out into the water, because the bones are crumbly and demineralized when the broth is done cooking – often they’re so weak that they’ll fall apart if you put any pressure on them. If you use smaller bones, like chicken or fish, they’ll sometimes even entirely dissolve into the stock.

Another interesting anti-inflammatory benefit of the proteins in bone broth is more rapid recovery from injury. Under the stress of an injury or disease, the body’s needs for these amino acids increases and bone broth is perfect for supplementing this increased need for the body to repair.

So the old advice of drink soup when you are sick still stands. Drink soup when inflamed, when joints hurt, to heal the gut or when recovering from an injury as well! If you don't want to make your own bone broth there's a great organic bone broth place in NYC, Brodo and online, even though it comes in plastic, The Osso Good Co.

A Healing Apple Cider Vinegar Drink

Years ago I started suggesting the use of drinking apple cider vinegar to help with candida problems but when I found out that Hippocrates (the father of modern medicine) knew about apple cider vinegar’s antibiotic properties and recommended it to his patients for its healing properties centuries ago I started doing more research.

Apple cider vinegar has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties. Among the ailments it’s said to help with allergies, acne, high cholesterol, joint pain, weight loss, rheumatism, arthritis, gout, dandruff, chronic fatigue, candida, sore throat, gum infection, sinus infection, flu, acid reflux, leg cramps and ear infections. It’s also used to help dissolve kidney stones, lower high blood pressure, and it’s also been shown to help with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes by improving insulin sensitivity.

Even though vinegar is acidic, when we drink apple cider vinegar it has an alkaline effect in our bodies. The fact that apple cider vinegar causes our pH levels to become more alkaline could play a large part in it's healing abilities. It also reacts to some toxins in our bodies, converting them into less toxic substances. Our bodies need a slightly alkaline pH balance to be healthy. The typical Western diet creates an acidic pH in our bodies, and many health problems are attributed to this. Taking a tonic containing apple cider vinegar can help restore alkalinity, and therefore assist the body in getting rid of some of the health problems listed above.




You’ll get the greatest health benefits from apple cider vinegar that is made from organic apples, fermented using traditional methods, raw (unpasteurized) and unfiltered. Be sure to drink apple cider vinegar diluted or it eats away at tooth enamel and can cause burns to the sensitive tissues in your mouth and throat. There have also been reports of apple cider vinegar supplements (in capsule form) causing permanent tissue damage of the esophagus. So use apple cider vinegar in liquid form, diluted with water.

I have been experimenting with a few tinctures and so far I found this one to be the best. It has the diluted apple cider vinegar but also has the baking soda and lime juice which are alkaline and help raise the pH. pH is important in decreasing inflammation. Inflammation is the foundational problem to all the above listed symptoms. The only difference in symptoms is how the body decides to manifest the inflammation. Acne is inflammation of the skin, acid reflux is inflammation of the stomach, allergies is inflammation of the sinuses. arthritis is inflammation of the joints. etc. The spices are added to the tincture because cayenne will increase circulation which is beneficial in healing and turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties.

1Tbsp. organic apple cider vinegar
1/2 organic lime squeezed
1/4 tsp. baking soda
the baking soda will fizz, so wait for it to fizz out
a pinch of cayenne
a pinch of turmeric
a pinch of black pepper
1/2 cup warm water

Drink 20 minutes or more before breakfast every day.
Make sure the water is warm not hot, for hot water will change the properties of the vinegar and lime juice.

To read other benefits of apple cider vinegar, 

read my blog.