Benefits of Healthy Tea – Boost the Body’s Defenses & Immune System

A few cups of tea a day may keep illness away by boosting the body’s protective immune system, according to a study published.

In the study, Bukowski and his co-authors isolated from ordinary black tea a substance called L-theanine. He said the substance is found as well in green and oolong tea, which also are processed from traditional tea tree leaves.

L-theanine is broken down in the liver to ethylamine, a molecule that primes the response of an immune blood cell called the gamma-delta T cell.

These gamma-delta T cells in the blood are the first line of defense against many types of bacteria, viral, fungal and parasitic infections, and even have some anti-tumor activity.

The T cells prompt the secretion of interferon, a key part of the body’s chemical defense against infection.

The health effects of tea have been extensively studied. It has been linked to lower heart disease and cancer risk through the action of flavonoids, a type of antioxidant.

Other studies have linked tea to helping combat osteoporosis, the brittle bone disease, and to relieving some allergy symptoms.

“I think the elderly would benefit a lot from drinking tea,” he said. “I think there’s no downside to it.”

However, he added that regular tea drinkers still get sick, so people should not throw out their medicine cabinet.

“Drinking tea isn’t a treatment or a cure for anything,” Bukowski cautioned.

“If people are sick, they shouldn’t start drinking tea to get better,” he said. “They should go to the doctor.”

These data provide evidence that dietary intake of tea and perhaps other vegetables and fruits … may prime human T cells that then can provide natural resistance to microbial infections and perhaps tumors.

The study showed that those people who drank five to six small cups (about 20 fluid ounces) of black tea per day were better equipped to prevent infection. But the work needs to be confirmed in a much larger study, involving more people.


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