George Harrison

[Guest guest]

The Power of Prayer in Medicine

 

People Who Are Prayed for Fare Better

By Jeanie Davis

WebMD Medical News

 

 

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 Medicine.

 

"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.

 

 

Medically Reviewed

By Charlotte Grayson

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Spirituality May Help People Live Longer

 

Why do older people who regularly attend religious services appear to live

longer and have better health? Is it something about the type of people they

are? Or is it something related to their visits to churches or synagogues --

perhaps increased contact with other people?

By John Cutter

WebMD Medical News

 

 

Why do older people who regularly attend religious services appear to live

longer and have better health? Is it something about the type of people they

are? Or is it something related to their visits to churches or synagogues --

perhaps increased contact with other people?

 

A growing body of research is beginning to define the complex connections

between religious and spiritual beliefs and practices and an individual's

physical and psychological health. No one says it's as simple as going to

services or "finding religion" later in life. It may be that people who are

more involved in religious activities or are personally more spiritual are

doing something that makes them feel better emotionally and helps them live

longer and more healthily. The question, researchers say, is what exactly

are they doing?

 

"There is an increasing interest in the subject among researchers and the

public," says Susan H. McFadden, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin at

Oshkosh, who is co-chair of the Religion and Aging interest group of the

Gerontological Society on Aging (GSA), a national group of researchers in

aging.

 

Aging experts will discuss religion, spirituality and aging at the GSA

annual conference, which starts Nov. 19 in San Francisco. Sessions will

include a discussion of a new report -- from the National Institute on Aging

and the Fetzer Institute, a Michigan foundation interested in mind/body

issues -- that details research on the religious and spiritual dimensions of

health.

Go to Church, Live Longer

 

Among the most recent findings in this area: People who attend religious

services at least once a week are less likely to die in a given period of

time than people who attend services less often. These results -- published

in the August 1999 issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences --

came out of a study examining almost 4,000 North Carolina residents aged 64

to 101.

 

People who attended religious services at least once a week were 46 percent

less likely to die during the six-year study, says lead author Harold G.

Koenig, M.D., of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

"When we controlled for such things as age, race, how sick they were and

other health and social factors, there was still a 28 percent reduction in

mortality," he says.

 

Koenig, a psychiatrist, says that the regular churchgoers showed a reduction

in their mortality rate comparable to that of people who don't smoke over

those who do.

Spiritual, Healthy Habits

 

Other large studies have had similar results. Some smaller studies have also

shown that spirituality may be beneficial: People who attend religious

services, or who feel they are spiritual, experience lower levels of

depression and anxiety; display signs of better health, such as lower blood

pressure and fewer strokes; and say they generally feel healthier.

 

Researchers, including Koenig, say there are limitations to the conclusions

anyone should draw from these studies. It could be that people who attend

religious services benefit from the social network they form. "It might be

that people in churches and synagogues watch out for others, especially the

elderly," encouraging them, for example, to get help if they look sick,

Koenig says.

 

Also, it's known that among today's older men and women, religious belief

often leads to less risky behavior, such as less alcohol consumption and

smoking. And religious beliefs -- or a strong feeling of spirituality

outside of traditional religions -- may improve an individual's ability to

cope with the stresses of everyday life and the tribulations of aging,

experts say.

 

Or it could be, McFadden says, that certain personality types cope better

with life -- and those are the types of people who also attend services more

regularly.

Probing Further

 

Future research might benefit from new survey questions that scientists

developed recently. In October, the National Institute on Aging and the

Fetzer Institute released a report on new measurement tests. With these

tests, researchers may be able to probe more deeply into the connections

between health and spirituality, says Ellen Idler, Ph.D., of Rutgers

University in New Jersey, who helped write part of the report.

 

For example, the new tests ask questions about daily spiritual experiences,

private religious practices and beliefs and values -- not just about regular

church attendance, as some earlier studies did.

 

"There are private behaviors, attitudes, public behaviors and activities,"

Idler says of the aspects of an individual's spiritual life. "It is a

tremendous, multidimensional model."

Support for the Inner Self

 

Even people who don't describe themselves as religious probably can benefit

from some of the lessons uncovered by research into spirituality and aging,

says Harry R. Moody, Ph.D., a gerontologist and author of The Five Stages of

the Soul.

 

"The message isn't 'Go back to church and you'll live a long time,' but stay

connected with people on your own wavelength," says Moody, until recently

the director of the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College in New York

City.

 

This could mean, for example, joining small prayer groups not associated

with any church, trying personal meditation, writing your life story,

searching inside for personal meaning in life as you age and face death,

remaining optimistic about life even if age and illness take their toll, and

forging social connections with family, friends and others.

 

"You have to discover what is your subjective way of coping with life and

tap into it," Moody says.