Tea’s virtually calorie-free, and helps your body maintain its fluid balance.

Also, studies show that drinking at least three cups of tea each day helps you:

Lower your cholesterol
Burn more calories
Reduce your blood pressure
Thin your blood
Enhance your immune system
Reduce your risk of heart attack
Reduce your risk of cancer
Boost your longevity
Smooth your digestion
Prevent cavities and gingivitis
Slow the aging process

Sound amazing? It is! Take a look at some of tea’s properties, which make it so laden with healthy benefits.

Antioxidants in tea are called polyphenols or flavonoids. You’ll find them in all types of tea, although in much higher concentrations in white and green tea. Antioxidants stop free radical cells from destroying the molecules that make up our bodies. And, they prevent aging and chronic disease. Catechin polyphenols, specifically, also inhibit the absorption of cholesterol in your blood stream and prevent the formation of blood clots.

Green tea contains 27% catechins
Oolong tea contains 23% catechins
Black tea contains 4% catechins
Herbal teas, like chamomile, contain 0% catechins

Tea is also an important source of vitamins and minerals. Drink a cup and you’ll be getting vitamin A, vitamin B1, B2, B6, vitamin C, vitamin E, Fluoride, Folic acid, Manganese, and Potassium. It’s nature’s natural multi-vitamin!

Unlike the caffeine you’ll find in coffee, the caffeine in tea acts as a gentle stimulus to your central nervous system by enhancing the flow of blood to your brain. It doesn’t affect your heart rate or circulation.

Tea actually improves your concentration and reaction times, and heightens mental awareness and sensitivity.

The interaction of Caffeine and Tannin is a gentle and gradual process, and it provides an equally gradual long lasting and gently diminishing stimulus.

Caffeine occurs naturally in tea, although in smaller concentration than in coffee, chocolate, or cola drinks.

Because the caffeine in tea acts as a gentle stimulant to the heart and circulatory system, it helps keep the walls of your blood vessels soft, which reduces the likelihood of atherosclerosis and heart attack.

There is a difference between the effect of caffeine in tea and effect of caffeine found in coffee. First, tea takes longer to affect you. It provides more of a subtle lift, and not the fast boost that caffeine in coffee provides. You could say that tea makes you alert, while coffee makes you nervous.

The caffeine in tea increases concentration, alertness, and accuracy, and enhances your senses of smell and taste. It also stimulates your digestive juices and metabolism, including your kidneys and liver, so your body can eliminate toxins and other unwanted substances with ease.

Caffeine acts primarily in our brains and muscles. In tea, the caffeine effect is complemented by another compound found only in tea, theophyline. Theophyline stimulates your respiratory system, heart and kidneys, which is why tea is helpful in maintaining a healthy cardiovascular system.

Want proof that tea is good for your health? Here’s a recap of recent medical studies that show tea’s potency.

In a 10-year study in the Netherlands, researchers found that 3-cup per day black tea drinking men are 50% less likely to die of heart disease caused by clogged arteries than those drinking just one cup each day.

Joseph Vita, MD, from Boston University’s School of Medicine found that heart patients drinking black tea showed a 50% improvement in blood vessel functioning over a 1-month period versus those who drink only water.

If you’ve suffered a heart attack already, a recent study by Kenneth J. Mukamal MD presented in Study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association points to tea’s benefits.

In a study of 1,900 people, both men and women in their 60s who suffered heart attacks, heavy tea drinkers (14+ cups per day) had a 44% lower death rate within three and one half years after the attack versus moderate tea drinkers (less than 14 cups per day), who had a 28% lower death rate versus non-tea drinkers.

A Swiss study reported in the September, 2002 issue of Men’s Fitness showed men given a green tea extract with every meal boosted metabolism and increased their energy levels by 4% over 24 hours.

“A 4-percent increase doesn’t sound like much,” says author Ben Kallen, “but it could make a significant difference to someone who is training serious and eating right…. If you make no other dietary or lifestyle changes, you’ll still lose almost 9 pounds during the next year.”

Have you ever heard of TF-2? It’s a compound in black tea that may actually stop cancer growth. Researchers at Rutgers University found that TF-2 caused cancer cells to “commit suicide.”

Dentists have long been proponents of tea, and now Canadian researchers found that mice given tea to drink instead of water stayed cavity free. Tea is rich in fluorides, which strengthens bones and tooth enamel.

Fighting the flu? Diarrhea? Pneumonia? Cystitis? Skin Infections? Try black and green tea. Researchers at Pace University found that black and green tea wipe out viruses, including those in your mouth.

And, recent research in Japan and at Harvard University concluded that tea chemicals boost your immunity against bacteria and viruses.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University found that mice given 4-cups of green tea each day cut their risk of developing arthritis in half. Other studies, such as one conducted at UCLA, showed that 600 Chinese men and women cut their risk of chronic stomach inflammation in half by drinking green tea.