That it's good for your heart isn't anything shocking. But just HOW good green tea can be for your ticker—that's big news.

Because a new study in Japan, appearing in the Annals of Epidemiology, has shown that drinking 7 cups of green tea a day could cut heart disease risk death by a massive 75%.

Researchers followed over 12,000 people between the ages of 65 and 84 for five years. Compared with people who drank less than one cup of green tea per day, those who drank 7 had, in addition to the impressive heart benefits, a 55% lower risk of death from any cause.

Their risk of death from colorectal cancer was also slashed by 31%.

Now, the researchers say that these strong effects may be due to a lifetime of heavy green tea drinking.

But, given all of the other benefits of green tea—protection against Alzheimer's, lower risk of prostate cancer, and help with weight loss—I say there's no such thing as "too late" for green tea.

Especially when you look at some recent work at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. There, scientists have reported that the cells of regular tea drinkers (an average of 3 cups per day) may actually have a younger biological age than the cells of people who don't drink tea.

They found that the DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes that shorten as cells age were a good bit longer in the tea drinkers.

So what's that mean?

A difference of about five years of life.

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to brew myself a big pot of green tea!

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