I reallly want to see if we can get out of mice and into humans for some of these interesting herbs for cancer, and I think we will.
---Dr. Mary Hardy, Center for Dietary Supplement Research, UCLA

All right you mousies, back away from the tea. While animal studies suggest that tea is useful chemoprevention against cancer, now it's our turn to tea off the tumors.

Indian researchers are conducting an ongoing study of 82 patients with oral leukoplakia (a pre-cancerous conditon of the mouth characterized by white patches, often associated with cigarette use). Oral cancer is the number one malignancy in East Indian men.

The investigators checked out the sturdiness of the DNA from these leukoplakic hotbeds of chromosomal chaos. The subjects then were treated for a year with 4-5 daily cups of black tea.

Of the first 15 patients who completed the study (that's at least 21,600 cups quaffed for you tea-totallers), all showed a significant decrease in the chromosomal equivalent of split ends.

Dr. Hardy points out that "This is not a toxic or difficult intervention." Why wait then for the final report from this study to make tea your caffeinated beverage of choice?