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Coffee or Tea: Which Is Tops?
This Week's Tips
A hot cup of something steamy always sounds good first thing in the morning. But which -- coffee or tea?
Both coffee and tea are chock-full of antioxidants, so feel fine about sipping either. But this might sway your decision: Tea also contains something that seems to fight nasty infections. What is it?
Bacteria Basher
It's L-theanine, an amino acid that boosts immune responses to bacteria, including the ones that cause gut-churning food poisoning. Coffee, which lacks L-theanine, shows no such antibacterial activity in studies. (Find out the food-safe way to make salads, prepare party foods, and dispose of your trash.)
More Reasons to Sip a Cuppa
Black, green, or oolong tea all provide a nice dose of the bacteria-thwarting compound. And these fragrant brews give you a host of other health benefits, too, from helping your heart (read how tea does it) to cutting cancer risk (especially this one, which affects women). And although it's lower in caffeine than coffee, tea still provides about as much of the pick-me-up stuff as a soda. So pour yourself a cuppa!
Did You Know?
Adding this to your tea makes it even more of an antioxidant powerhouse.
RealAge Benefit:
Getting the right amount of antioxidants through diet or supplements can make your RealAge 6 years younger.
Antigens in tea-beverage prime human Vgamma 2Vdelta 2 T cells in vitro and in vivo for memory and nonmemory antibacterial cytokine responses. Kamath, A. B., Wang, L., Das, H., Li, L., Reinhold, V. N., Bukowski, J. F., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2003 May 13;100(10):6009-6014.
