The Power of Prayer in Medicine

[Guest guest]

The Power of Prayer in Medicine

 

People Who Are Prayed for Fare Better

 

By

<http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/1756.50703> Jeanie Davis

 

 

 

 

Nov. 6, 2001 -- Here's more evidence that -- in medicine, as in all of

life -- prayer seems to work in mysterious ways.

In one recent study, women at an in vitro fertilization clinic had

higher pregnancy rates when total strangers were praying for them.

Another study finds that people undergoing risky cardiovascular surgery

have fewer complications when they are the focus of prayer groups.

The fertilization study -- conducted at a hospital in Seoul, Korea --

found a doubling of the pregnancy rate among women who were prayed for,

says Rogerio A. Lobo, MD, chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia

University School of Medicine in New York City. His study appears in the

September issue of the Journal of Reproductive Health.

"It's a highly-significant finding," Lobo tells WebMD. "I'm first to say

we don't know what this means."

The randomized study involved 199 women who were undergoing in vitro

fertility treatments at a hospital in Seoul, Korea, during 1998 and

1999. All women were selected for the study based on their similar age

and fertility factors, Lobo tells WebMD.

Half the women were randomly assigned to have one of several Christian

prayer groups in the U.S., Canada, and Australia pray for them. A

photograph of each patient was given to "her" prayer group. While one

set of prayer groups prayed directly for the women, a second set of

prayer groups prayed for the first set, and a third group prayed for

both groups.

Neither the women nor their medical caregivers knew about the study --

or that anyone was praying for them.

"We were very careful to control this as rigorously as we could," Lobo

tells WebMD. "We deliberately set it up in an unbiased way." That meant

not informing patients they were being prayed for, so it would not

influence the women's outcome. Whether the patients were praying for

themselves -- or if others were praying for them -- "we don't know," he

says.

The women in the "prayed for" group became pregnant twice as often as

the other women, he says.

"We were not expecting to find a positive result," says Lobo.

Researchers have re-analyzed the data several times, to detect any

discrepancies -- but have been unable to find any, he says.

Lobo admits there may be some "biological variable" that they have not

discovered, which could account for the high success rate among the

prayed-for women. He and his colleagues are already planning a follow-up

study also involving in vitro fertilization.

The second study involves 150 patients -- all having serious heart

problems, all scheduled for a procedure called angioplasty, in which

doctors thread a catheter up into a clogged heart artery, open it up,

and insert a little device called a stent to prop it open.

Patients who were prayed for during their procedure had far fewer

complications, reports lead author Mitchell W. Krucoff, MD, director of

the Ischemia Monitoring Laboratory at Duke University Medical Center and

the Durham Veterans Administration Medical Center in Durham, NC.

His study appears in the current issue of the American Heart Journal.

Krucoff enrolled 150 patients who were going to have the stent

procedure, and then randomly assigned them to receive one of five

complementary therapies: guided imagery, stress relaxation, healing

touch, or intercessory 'off site' prayer -- which meant they were prayed

for by others, or to no complementary therapy.

All the complementary therapies -- except off-site prayer -- were

performed at the patient's bedside at least one hour before the cardiac

procedures.

Seven prayer groups of varying denominations around the world --

Buddhists, Catholics, Moravians, Jews, fundamentalist Christians,

Baptists, and the Unity School of Christianity -- prayed for specific

patients during their procedures.

Each prayer group was assigned names, ages, and illnesses of specific

patients they were to pray for. None of the patients, family members, or

staff knew who was being prayed for. None of the patient-prayer group

matchings were based on denomination.

"This was a very rigorously controlled study, just as we would look at

any therapeutic -- a new cardiovascular drug, a new stent -- and see the

results in terms of patients' outcomes," Krucoff tells WebMD. The goal

was to determine which therapies warranted further study in a bigger

trial.

Those in the "prayed for" group had fewer complications than any of the

patients, including those receiving other complementary therapies, he

says. "Although it's not statistical proof, it's not certainty, it is

suggestive -- to the point that we've already begun a phase II trial."

He has already enrolled more than 300 people in a phase II study.

Why did prayer produce the best outcome? "There are no satisfactory

mechanistic explanations," he says. That's why studies that measure

patients' outcomes are best for this kind of study, he says. Even if you

don't understand why it's happening, at least you have something to

measure -- how the patient did."

Both studies are "well-controlled," preliminary trials "providing more

evidence that there's something to it all," says Blair Justice, PhD,

professor of psychology and psychobiologist (mind-body medicine) at the

University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.

Justice, who has followed prayer research for several decades, reviewed

the reports for WebMD.

"Research into prayer has been going on a lot longer than is reflected

in mainstream journals," Justice tells WebMD. "Since the 1980s, there

have been several well-controlled prospective studies, good evidence

that this wasn't some product of a good imagination."

Some of the studies conducted in Europe involved nonhuman organisms --

enzyme cells, bacteria, plants, animals -- which could not be affected

by other complicating factors, including faith. Groups were assigned to

pray for their growth; then the prayers were reversed, and people were

praying against growth. Each time, the plants responded according to the

focus of the prayers.

"There seems to be something to it," he says.

While current technology does not allow researchers to understand the

mechanism behind prayer -- what makes it work -- it's much like gravity

and other natural phenomena that were considered mysterious forces by

earlier cultures, Justice tells WebMD.

"Keppler was accused of being insane when he said tides were due to the

tug of lunar gravity, even Galileo considered it to be ravings of a

lunatic -- until Marconi proved the theory," he says.

"It's just like anything else, you don't have to believe in it for

prayer to have an effect," says Justice.

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Jai Sriman narayana!

 

Recitation of Sri Vishnu Sahasranamam has been suggested in India for many

problems in life: for health, peace,

wealth and also when there is no help from medicine.

 

dasan

govindarajan

 

Vishnu Reddy wrote:

>

> The Power of Prayer in Medicine

>

> People Who Are Prayed for Fare Better

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> By

> <http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/1756.50703> Jeanie Davis

>