A potful of evidence suggests that the antioxidants and polyphenols in tea help protect you from stroke and heart attack, Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, and cancers of the lung, mouth, breast, pancreas, prostate and skin. The essential oils found in the leaves even aid_1_by increasing the flow of digestive juices.

    Now it turns out that tea,_2_chicken soup or echinacea, is what can give your body an extra_3_to help it battle infections.
   Given 20 ounces of tea daily, non-tea drinkers were better able to fight_4_bacterial diseases, according to a study at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. The researchers_5_L-theanine, an_6_found in black, green, oolong and pekoe teas--but not in_7_teas, which usually don't contain Camellia sinensis, the one true tea_8_.

    When broken down by the liver, L-theanine becomes an antigen called ethylamine,_9_primes the response of gamma-delta T cells against a_10_of bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic_11_, and possibly tumors. (Ethylamine is also found in other plant-based foods, such as apples, mushrooms and wine.)

    In the study, blood samples from new tea drinkers were_12_to E. coli, bacteria_13_food poisoning and ulcers. The_14_cells in the tea drinkers produced five times the interferon―an important element of the body's_15_system--than they had before tea was_16_. No change was noted in a_17_group of coffee drinkers.

    “I don’tthink there’s a_18_to [drinking tea],” says co-author Jack F. Bukowski, M.D, of Harvard Medical School. While tea won’t_19_you or make you immune from illness, “people who do get sick will probably get a milder_20_,” Bukowski says.