Though green tea has become a staple of healthy diets in recent years based on studies showing it could prevent cardiovascular disease and cancer in lab animals, its effects on humans haven’t definitively been proven.

However, a huge new Japanese study goes a long way toward connecting the dots.

Researchers looked at green tea consumption and mortality among 40,530 Japanese men and women between the ages of 40 and 79.

They found that drinking green tea reduced participants’ risk of death during the 11-year study period, particularly from cardiovascular disease (CVD), but did not have an impact on cancer death.

The effect was stronger in women, and the more green tea people drank, the greater the protection it offered.

For example, women drinking between one and two cups a day had about 84 percent the risk of death from CVD compared with nondrinkers; those drinking between three and four had 69 percent the risk.

“On die basis of our study results, I would recommend drinking green tea to my friends and my family,” says study author Shinichi Kuriyama, MD, PhD, at the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine. “I personally drink two to three cups a day.” [source: Elle]