Drop for drop, it’s hard to top green tea when it comes to health benefits. The drink has been shown to help fight cancer, boost the immune system, and even help you to live longer.

And now, a new study shows that it can keep you active and on your feet — especially if you’re getting up there in years.

Japanese researchers tracked nearly 14,000 seniors for up to three years, and found that those who drank the most tea were a third less likely to battle disability — including problems with everyday life, such as bathing or dressing — than those who drank the most.

This being Japan, however, the people who drank the most drank quite a bit — five cups a day (those who drank the least, on the other hand, had less than a cup on average). That’s a lot of tea, but you don’t have to drink that much to benefit. In fact, three cups a day reduced the risk of disability by a quarter.

The study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition doesn’t show why green tea helps keep seniors active and independent, and part of the reason is almost certainly because the tea drinkers in the study had healthier lifestyles overall.

But that’s not the only reason — because green tea is packed with powerful antioxidants that have shown to boost health and ward off disease before, including epigallocatechin gallate.

That’s a name that was designed to trip tongues, so we call it EGCG for short — and studies have shown that this stuff can reverse the cell damage linked to illness and disease.

Green tea has also been shown to fight cancer, gum disease, stress, depression, pneumonia, and more. It can also boost your immune system, lower your levels of bad cholesterol, reduce your stroke risk, ward off dementia, and even help you to lose weight.

It’s about as close to a “magic” elixir as you’ll find — so go and brew yourself a cup or five today.

It’s the attitude adjustment that could save your life: A new study finds that happy people live longer — which means a smile might turn out to be the cheapest, safest, and easiest longevity-booster on the planet.

Can you think of any drug or supplement that can slash your risk of a premature death by 35 percent? I can’t — but the study of 3,800 people between the ages of 52 and 79 found that happiness did just that, even after adjusting for age, gender, depression and other health and lifestyle risks.

All told, just 3.6 percent of the happiest people died during the five-year study — versus 4.6 percent of those who had average levels of happiness and 7.3 percent of those who were unhappy.

The volunteers also answered questions about fear, anxiety and worry — but none of those other attitudes seemed to have any effect on who lived and who died.

Just happiness — although it could also be that the very things that make us happy also help us to live longer.

Married people, for example, live longer… and people who’ve been married a long time tend to be happier than those who are alone (even if we might joke otherwise).

Happier people also have a tighter circle of friends — something that’s also known to boost both longevity and happiness.

On the other hand, attitude alone really can have a direct and measurable impact on health, like a study a couple of years back that found happy people have a 22 percent lower risk of heart disease.

Another study I told you about over the summer found that an attitude closely linked to happiness — optimism — slashed the risk of a stroke.

And last year, researchers found that the most disagreeable people were more likely to have thicker carotid arteries — which would explain that increase in stroke risk, not to mention the thick bulging neck veins seen on angry cartoon characters.

I know changing your attitude is easier said than done — especially if you have years of experience in the grouch department. But while it’s difficult, it’s not impossible — and if you can pull it off, it might just save your life.

You might think the only “exercise” you’ll get from drinking wine comes from lifting the glass — or maybe struggling to open the bottle.

But it turns out resveratrol, the famous “red wine antioxidant,” can actually trick the body into thinking it’s getting some actual exercise — giving you a big-time metabolic boost with every little sip.

In just 30 days, 11 obese-but-healthy volunteers — as healthy as obese people can be, anyway — given 150 mg of resveratrol a day had real and measurable changes throughout their bodies.

They shaved five points off their blood pressure, lowered their blood sugar, and even reduced their levels of liver fat. In fact, just about the only thing it didn’t do would be one thing you’d really hope for the most — because none of the volunteers actually lost any weight.

I know. So much for the “red wine diet.”

But while they didn’t look any different from the outside, what took place on the inside was nothing short of amazing: The researchers wrote in Cell Metabolism that the volunteers had dramatically slower metabolisms during sleep.

These were the kinds of changes normally seen in people who try the impossible-to-follow ultra-low calorie diet… except these volunteers didn’t cut back on their calories at all.

The only “catch” here is that you can’t expect to get these types of benefits from red wine alone — because while it might be the tastiest way to get the antioxidant, it’s not actually the best way to get it.

In fact, you’d need between 50 and 100 glasses of red wine a day to get the 150 mg of resveratrol used in the study!

So clearly, if you want the benefits of resveratrol, you’re going to have to invest in a quality supplement or an antioxidant blend with resveratrol in it. It’s worth the money: Other studies have shown that it can protect the heart, save your vision, reduce blood sugar levels and even help you live longer.

But don’t toss the wine, either. It’s loaded with polyphenols that can boost your heart health and stimulate your immune system.

And booze in general is packed with benefits: Studies have also shown that moderate drinkers who enjoy any type of alcohol live longer, healthier lives than people who don’t drink.

So get a little exercise tonight and raise a glass to your lips. It’s the best workout of all.

Resveratrol isn’t the only way to boost your health and longevity — keep reading for something even simpler.

Gentlemen, listen to your wives: What you might dismiss as nagging could save your life — especially if she’s nagging you to get to the hospital.

A new study finds that married men who suffer a heart attack are more likely to get to a hospital quicker than their bachelor counterparts — and researchers believe it’s because their wives are urging them to go at the first sign of trouble.

Men on their own, on the other hand, stubbornly refuse to seek help until the last minute — or even until it’s too late.

Canadian researchers looked at data on 4,403 heart attack patients with an average age of 67, including 1,486 women, and found that married patients got to the hospital an average of 30 minutes sooner than single ones.

That’s 30 crucial minutes to get treatment for a condition in which every second counts.

But the benefit went almost entirely to men: The researchers say that married men were 60 percent less likely to arrive late when compared to single men, while women reached the hospital in the same amount of time regardless of marital status.

The researchers say women take on a “caregiver” role when they’re married and will push their husbands to seek treatment when something’s wrong. What’s more, they say married men will even seek help when their wives aren’t around — because they know their wives would want them to.

“As my husband put it, even if I wasn’t there telling him to go to the hospital, he’d hear my voice telling him to do so,” lead author Dr. Clare L. Atzema told the New York Times. “Even when they’re not there, women have a pronounced effect.”

Either that, or marriage causes voices in a man’s head.

If that’s the case, at least they’re good voices: Other studies have found that married men are healthier and live longer than their single and divorced counterparts. Women also enjoy some benefits from marriage — although, generally speaking, the differences are not as pronounced as in men.

But since they already live longer than men anyway, maybe it’s simply of a case of “he needs her more than she needs him.”