"...tea may help prevent or lessen the severity of... conditions"

Take frequent tea breaks this winter, and you may just get through it without a sniffle. Immunologists at Harvard University discovered that people who drank five cups of black tea a day for 2 weeks transformed their immune system T cells into "Hulk cells" that pumped out 10 times more cold and flu virus-fighting interferon than did the immune systems of those who didn't drink black tea. Green tea should work just as well.

"Not just the common cold and flu, but food poisoning, infected cuts, athlete's foot-even diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria-are caused by germs that your body fights with interferon. We think the interferon boosts from tea may help prevent or lessen the severity of all these conditions," says Jack Bukowski, MD, PhD.

While five cups a day may seem like a lot, he thinks fewer cups may still offer some valuable protection. "And the interferon link may explain tea's other health benefits, including its reported cancer-fighting power, since we already know that interferon slows the growth of tumor cells," says Bukowski.

Prevention Magazine October 2003