The Only Double Blind Study In Non-Drug Treatment Of Heart Disease

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You are perhaps familiar with the ONLY double blind scientific study ever

done on patients in an intensive heart care unit? At least I've never heard of

any other.

Here is an article I've written that might interest you.

 

The Only Double Blind Study

In Non-Drug Treatment

Of Heart Disease

A " double blind study " means that neither the patient nor the attending

physician knows which patient is getting the special treatment. This story is

also included on another page on this web site. _Click Here_

(http://www.oralchelation.com/technical/IV1.html) to read that

_http://www.oralchelation.com/technical/IV1.html_

(http://www.oralchelation.com/technical/IV1.html)

The drug company, for instance, wants to test new drug A. It's in a red

pill. So, they make a batch of these new red pills, with the drug. Then they

also make a batch of pills containing sugar, or something inert, and make

them red too. These are called the " placebo " pills, because if the patient

" gets better " when taking these sugar pills (with no drugs inside) they would

know that the improvement is due to the placebo effect -- not due to any drug

inside. They keep these pills carefully separate.

Then, they find some doctors to administer the pills. The doctors are given

two batches of red pills. One is marked " Number One, " and the other is

called " Number Two. " The doctors don't know which is the real pill and which

is

the sugar pill.

The doctors give these pills to their patients -- the patients who have the

symptoms which the drug is supposed to treat. The doctors keep careful track

of which patient gets which pill, and then follows the course of the

patients' health in his normal fashion.

If, after the appropriate time, the doctor finds that all the patients who

got the Number Two pill are much more healthy, and the patients who got the

Number One pill are just as sick as before, the Doctor might guess that the

Number Two pill was the " real thing. " In any event, the drug company knows

which is which.

This type of test eliminates what often happens otherwise.

The doctor gets the new drug -- no double blind, you understand. He tells

the patient he has a new drug for his ailment. The patient takes the pill and

gets better. We can't be sure it is the drug or some mysterious placebo

effect.

So, doctors have these kinds of tests going on all the time.

The test in my Book was not widely reported in the medical journals but most

heart specialists will admit they know about it when you remind them with

some details, but none of them think the new special treatment is valid.

In this case the In Charge of the experiment, Randolph C. Byrd, M.D., took

the entire population of a coronary intensive care unit at the San Francisco

General Hospital -- all the 450 patients who happened to enter into that unit,

during the period from August 1982 to May 1983. Each patient in that unit

was told about the treatment. Fifty-seven declined to be a part of the test.

That left 393 patients who signed consent forms to be included for the

test.

Remember, about half of those patients would get the treatment and the other

half would not. Those who agreed to be in the test did not know which group

they would be in.

some of the patients were just arriving, in some cases scheduled to receive

bypass surgery. Some were recovering patients -- in some cases just having

had bypass surgery. There were a wide variety of different conditions in this

group of patients.

The In Charge divided the group into two parts so that each group would

have, as much as possible, a similar number of patients with the same

conditions.

In fact, out of 393 patients, 109 had been admitted with severe heart

attacks and these were evenly split between the group getting the special

treatment

and the control group which did not.

In this amazing test the physician in charge of each patient had no idea of

whether or not his patient was getting the special treatment. In fact, each

patient continued along whatever course of treatment had been originally

scheduled for him -- with no knowledge that he was going to get, or not get, a

special treatment in addition to the already scheduled treatment.

Dr. Byrd never personally met any of the patients.

You understand the simplicity of this test?

Joe was in the intensive care unit, after a heart attack. he was scheduled

to get bypass and he got it. AT no time did he know whether or not he also

received some special treatment, nor did his doctor know.

The results were startling!

The group which got the special treatment had a statistically significant

improvement in their recovery rates and over all health indicators compared

with the group which did not get the special treatment.

This special treatment was provided at a basic cost of zero!

In other words, the only double blind study ever done on heart patients in

intensive care units, showed a very good improvement from the treatment, but

you have never heard about it and you will never hear about it anywhere else

except from Karl Loren.

Wouldn't you think that a test which such results would be repeated over and

over again to make sure that the results were valid!

Wouldn't you think that the big hospitals, and the big drug companies, and

the AMA would all clamor to find out more about this treatment -- perhaps

start teaching other doctors about it?

I owe this story to my good friend, now deceased, Dr. Robert Mendelssohn

when he was a guest on my radio talk show. He had a wonderful way of

stringing

out a story, just as I have above. Since then, of course, I've obtained the

entire scientific report.

What was that treatment?

Well, the In Charge took the name and some simple symptoms for each of the

patients who were to get the special treatment. He gave these names and

information to several individuals located in various cities around the United

States.

The job of these individuals was to pray for the patient whose name they

received!

The In Charge did not tell them HOW to pray, or when, or anything else. he

picked people who believed in prayer and were willing to pray for these

patients who they had never met. They were supposed to pray at least every day

for the patient they got. Each patient got at least three different persons

saying prayers and not more than seven persons.

Dr. Byrd picked persons to pray on the basis of their being Born Again

Christians with an active Christian life as manifested by daily devotional

prayer

and active Christian fellowship with a local church. member of several

Protestant churches and the Romany Catholic Church were represented among the

intercessors.

Those patients for whom prayers were said did better, by quite a bit, than

the patients for whom no prayers were said.

That's all! Very simple! Unbelievable.

You'd think that this research report would have been broadcast in every

newspaper, and then in every church. It was viewed as a curiosity.

There were actually critical reviews of the test -- criticisms on the basis

that there was no control over the praying method and that such techniques

lacked scientific basis.

So much for God in the halls of medicine!

These may seem like a humorous story, but consider how serious it is.

I've reported above about the placebo effect.

In variably when patients are given some sugar pill, and told that it is

effective in curing their problems, about 25% of them will get better. That is

the power of the spirit and mind. Doctors are frightened to death of this

because they can't relate to it. Playing god, themselves, they are not usually

ready to acknowledge that there might be a real God, and that real spiritual

healing can actually take place.

Remember, the patients in this test did NOT know, for sure, whether they

were being prayed for or not. it is possible that ALL of the patients did

better than they would have otherwise because ALL of them knew that there was

some

chance, at lest, that someone was praying for them!

Would you like someone to be praying for you when you next visit a doctor?

It would be a lot more effective than bypass surgery or Mevacor!

Bypass surgery has a rate of improvement, too, compared to patients who

don't get it. The most famous study of this type was done at thirteen different

Veterans Administration hospitals. The study was reported in the prestigious

New England Journal Of Medicine in September 1977.

A total of 596 patients were included in the study. Ninety-four percent had

angina pains and two thirds had had heart attacks. These were serious

problem patients! Every-one of these patients would normally have received

bypass

surgery -- that's how they were diagnosed.

As in any good study, the patients were divided into two groups, taking into

account all the differences in age, medical condition, etc.

This was a very courageous test because the doctors in charge had all agreed

to give bypass surgery to HALF of the patients, and NO BYPASS surgery to the

other half.

Right away you can see that this is not a blind study at all. The patients,

and their doctors, certainly knew which group they were in. But, with this

type o test, that's the best they could do.

You'd have to wonder at the half who agreed to forego bypass surgery. Were

they more courageous, and therefore more likely to do well without surgery?

that was one of the criticisms of the study when it was reported.

One group got bypass surgery. the other group was treated with drugs only

-- mostly nitroglycerin tablets.

What do you suppose?

Could bypass surgery show that it had made a statistically significant

improvement in the lives of the patients who got it? After all, prayer had

been

shown to be effective -- even meeting the fancy test called " statistically

significant. "

You can guess the results!

The study followed these patients over a period of many years. The basic

test was whether the person died or not, and then what further heart

complications they had.

Of those who received bypass surgery 86 percent were still alive after two

years.

Of those who did NOT receive bypass surgery, 87 percent were sill alive

after two years.

the study followed these patients for many years. Generally, even after

more than ten years, it proves out that prayer is far better than bypass

surgery

and receiving NO surgery is just as good as receiving a bypass surgery.

Despite this devastating report, in a respected Journal, the number of

bypass surgeries grew rapidly.

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To Karl Loren

July 6, 2000

 

Ed Uthman [_uthman_ (uthman) ]

Thursday, July 06, 2000 12:41 PM

karl

Re: Your article on biopsies

 

 

The prayer study is interesting. Where was it published?

 

Ed

 

 

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Dear Ed,

Here you are:

 

NLM database Document

__

 

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Record 1 from database: MEDLINE

_Order full text for this document_

(https://www.healthgate.com/cgi-bin/ddo/ddo.cgi?author=Byrd_RC & title=Positive+th\

erapeutic+effects+of+intercessory+prayer

+in+a+coronary+care+unit+population. & journal=South+Med+J & date=1988+Jul & vol=81 &

issue=7 & page=826-9 & ISSN=0038-4348)

Title

Positive therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer in a coronary care unit

population.

Author

Byrd RC

Address

Medical Service, San Francisco General Medical Center, CA.

Source

South Med J, 1988 Jul, 81:7, 826-9

Abstract

The therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer (IP) to the Judeo-Christian

God, one of the oldest forms of therapy, has had little attention in the

medical literature. To evaluate the effects of IP in a coronary care unit (CCU)

population, a prospective randomized double-blind protocol was followed. Over

ten months, 393 patients admitted to the CCU were randomized, after signing

informed consent, to an intercessory prayer group (192 patients) or to a

control group (201 patients). While hospitalized, the first group received IP

by

participating Christians praying outside the hospital; the control group did

not. At entry, chi-square and stepwise logistic analysis revealed no

statistical difference between the groups. After entry, all patients had

follow-up

for the remainder of the admission. The IP group subsequently had a

significantly lower severity score based on the hospital course after entry (P

less than

..01). Multivariant analysis separated the groups on the basis of the outcome

variables (P less than .0001). The control patients required ventilatory

assistance, antibiotics, and diuretics more frequently than patients in the IP

group. These data suggest that intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God

has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU.

Language of Publication

English

Unique Identifier

88277956

 

Karl Loren

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