PRAYERS offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people undergoing heart surgery, a large study has found.
In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had higher rates of post-operative complications, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers findings have suggested.
Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.
At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The latest study was intended to overcome flaws in the earlier investigations. The report was scheduled to appear in The American Heart Journal next week, but the journal's publisher released it online on Thursday.
The study's authors, led by Dr Herbert Benson, director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston, said the findings were not the last word on the effects of "intercessory" prayer. But the results raised questions about how and whether patients should be told prayers were being offered for them.
The researchers monitored 1802 patients at six hospitals who had coronary bypass surgery.
The patients were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told they were being prayed for; half were told they might or might not receive prayers.
Prayers were performed by members of three Christian groups in monasteries and elsewhere - two Catholic and one Protestant - who were given written prayers and the first name and initial of the last name of the prayer subjects. The prayers started on the eve of or day of surgery and lasted for two weeks.
Analysing complications in the 30 days after surgery, researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.
But a significantly higher number of patients who knew they were being prayed for - 59 per cent - suffered complications, compared with 51 per cent who were uncertain. The authors left open the possibility this was a chance finding. But they said being aware of the strangers' prayers may also have caused some patients a kind of performance anxiety.
The study also found more patients in the prayer group - 18 per cent - suffered major complications, like heart attack or stroke, compared with 13 per cent in the group that did not receive prayers.
In their report, the researchers suggested that this finding might also be a result of chance.
One of the authors of the findings, Reverend Dean Marek, director of chaplain services at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, added: "Our study was never intended to address the existence of God or the presence or absence of intelligent design in the universe."
The New York Times, Reuters
------------------------
So yeah. If I get sick, and if I'm not completely surrounded by people who hate my guts here, please, just wish me good luck or something like that.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Scientists hate jesus.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
I am really surprised by this result. Not that I think prayer will summon Angels down from heaven to help the sick, but I would think it would work like a placebo effect. The very idea that it will make you better changes your brain/body (maybe through reduction of stress and inflamation) to heal itself.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
broken_iris wrote:
I am really surprised by this result. Not that I think prayer will summon Angels down from heaven to help the sick, but I would think it would work like a placebo effect. The very idea that it will make you better changes your brain/body (maybe through reduction of stress and inflamation) to heal itself.
I agree.
Quote:
it may not help, but how many people here have actually prayed at night when someone they hold close has been severely ill?
Well, apparently, you've been causing surgical complications for your loved ones.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
I am really surprised by this result. Not that I think prayer will summon Angels down from heaven to help the sick, but I would think it would work like a placebo effect. The very idea that it will make you better changes your brain/body (maybe through reduction of stress and inflamation) to heal itself.
I agree.
Quote:
it may not help, but how many people here have actually prayed at night when someone they hold close has been severely ill?
Well, apparently, you've been causing surgical complications for your loved ones.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:46 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Medford, Oregon Gender: Male
broken_iris wrote:
I am really surprised by this result. Not that I think prayer will summon Angels down from heaven to help the sick, but I would think it would work like a placebo effect. The very idea that it will make you better changes your brain/body (maybe through reduction of stress and inflamation) to heal itself.
Maybe it has the reverse effect, in that some folks will put their faith in God that they'll be healed?
_________________ Deep below the dunes I roved Past the rows, past the rows Beside the acacias freshly in bloom I sent men to their doom
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
it may not help, but how many people here have actually prayed at night when someone they hold close has been severely ill?
i've been taught that God wants us to keep our praying to ourselves, to not make a big show of it. so maybe God intervened in this study to tell us to stop all the chest thumping evangelical shit and get back to being humble servents of the Lord.
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:20 am Posts: 5198 Location: Connecticut Gender: Male
Peeps wrote:
prays b, stip and sandler are all doing ok
That's more like it, Peeps.
I really don't see how it's possible for prayer to complicate surgical procedures. The 'placebo' effect broken iris mentioned makes much more sense to me.
I am really surprised by this result. Not that I think prayer will summon Angels down from heaven to help the sick, but I would think it would work like a placebo effect. The very idea that it will make you better changes your brain/body (maybe through reduction of stress and inflamation) to heal itself.
Maybe it has the reverse effect, in that some folks will put their faith in God that they'll be healed?
If you mean that people would reject medical treatment in favor of 'faith' healing.. then I bet it would have the reverse effect.
All other things being equal, I would think prayer would work like hypnosis and really can't make things worse. As long as the patient is not letting it interfer with the doctors doing the absolute best that they can, and they believe in prayer, then pray on.
Study finds church-goers live longer PITTSBURGH: A Pittsburgh study finds that regular churchgoing increases life expectancy as much as regular exercise or using statin drugs.
Dr. Daniel Hall, who is both a surgery resident at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and an Episcopal priest, said his research does not suggest that people should substitute church attendance for more conventional medicine. But he said his findings do warrant more research.
Hall used life expectancy tables and found that regular church-going appears to add 2 to 5 years to life expectancy, about the same as the use of statin drugs to reduce cholesterol. Regular exercise had the greatest effect on life expectancy, and was also the least costly in terms of years of life gained.
"Religious attendance is not a mode of medical therapy," Hall said. "While this study was not intended for use in clinical decision making, these findings tell us that there is something to examine further."
He said there are also ethical and moral problems with recommending religious attendance as a medical treatment.
The findings were published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.
Study finds church-goers live longer PITTSBURGH: A Pittsburgh study finds that regular churchgoing increases life expectancy as much as regular exercise or using statin drugs.
Dr. Daniel Hall, who is both a surgery resident at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and an Episcopal priest, said his research does not suggest that people should substitute church attendance for more conventional medicine. But he said his findings do warrant more research.
Hall used life expectancy tables and found that regular church-going appears to add 2 to 5 years to life expectancy, about the same as the use of statin drugs to reduce cholesterol. Regular exercise had the greatest effect on life expectancy, and was also the least costly in terms of years of life gained.
"Religious attendance is not a mode of medical therapy," Hall said. "While this study was not intended for use in clinical decision making, these findings tell us that there is something to examine further."
He said there are also ethical and moral problems with recommending religious attendance as a medical treatment.
The findings were published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.
Study finds church-goers live longer PITTSBURGH: A Pittsburgh study finds that regular churchgoing increases life expectancy as much as regular exercise or using statin drugs.
Dr. Daniel Hall, who is both a surgery resident at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and an Episcopal priest, said his research does not suggest that people should substitute church attendance for more conventional medicine. But he said his findings do warrant more research.
Hall used life expectancy tables and found that regular church-going appears to add 2 to 5 years to life expectancy, about the same as the use of statin drugs to reduce cholesterol. Regular exercise had the greatest effect on life expectancy, and was also the least costly in terms of years of life gained.
"Religious attendance is not a mode of medical therapy," Hall said. "While this study was not intended for use in clinical decision making, these findings tell us that there is something to examine further."
He said there are also ethical and moral problems with recommending religious attendance as a medical treatment.
The findings were published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.
The Jebus says: Suck it, nonbelievers.
McParadigm hangs his head.
Err, don't churchgoers also have a less incidence of things unhealthy, such as rates of lifetime usage of cigarettes and other drugs?
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