[linskyjack]

Many Americans believe believe that prayer by others can help someone who is ill recover. This recent study shows that this is more superstition, and in fact, prayer can have a detrimental effect.

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: March 31, 2006

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers 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 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.

The question has been a contentious one among researchers. Proponents have argued that prayer is perhaps the most deeply human response to disease, and that it may relieve suffering by some mechanism that is not yet understood. Skeptics have contended that studying prayer is a waste of money and that it presupposes supernatural intervention, putting it by definition beyond the reach of science.

At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new 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 yesterday.

In a hurriedly convened news conference, the study's authors, led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston, said that the findings were not the last word on the effects of so-called intercessory prayer. But the results, they said, raised questions about how and whether patients should be told that prayers were being offered for them.

"One conclusion from this is that the role of awareness of prayer should be studied further," said Dr. Charles Bethea, a cardiologist at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and a co-author of the study.

Other experts said the study underscored the question of whether prayer was an appropriate subject for scientific study.

"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."

The study cost $2.4 million, and most of the money came from the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research into spirituality. The government has spent more than $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000.

Dean Marek, a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-author of the report, said the study said nothing about the power of personal prayer or about prayers for family members and friends.

Working in a large medical center like Mayo, Mr. Marek said, "You hear tons of stories about the power of prayer, and I don't doubt them."

In the study, the researchers monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals who received coronary bypass surgery, in which doctors reroute circulation around a clogged vein or artery.

The patients were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told that they were being prayed for; half were told that they might or might not receive prayers.

The researchers asked the members of three congregations — St. Paul's Monastery in St. Paul; the Community of Teresian Carmelites in Worcester, Mass.; and Silent Unity, a Missouri prayer ministry near Kansas City — to deliver the prayers, using the patients' first names and the first initials of their last names.

The congregations were told that they could pray in their own ways, but they were instructed to include the phrase, "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications."

Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.

Copyright New York Times@2006

[iltos]

Originally Posted by linskyjack

Many Americans believe believe that prayer by others can help someone who is ill recover. This recent study shows that this is more superstition, and in fact, prayer can have a detrimental effect.

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: March 31, 2006

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers 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 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.

The question has been a contentious one among researchers. Proponents have argued that prayer is perhaps the most deeply human response to disease, and that it may relieve suffering by some mechanism that is not yet understood. Skeptics have contended that studying prayer is a waste of money and that it presupposes supernatural intervention, putting it by definition beyond the reach of science.

At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new 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 yesterday.

In a hurriedly convened news conference, the study's authors, led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston, said that the findings were not the last word on the effects of so-called intercessory prayer. But the results, they said, raised questions about how and whether patients should be told that prayers were being offered for them.

"One conclusion from this is that the role of awareness of prayer should be studied further," said Dr. Charles Bethea, a cardiologist at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and a co-author of the study.

Other experts said the study underscored the question of whether prayer was an appropriate subject for scientific study.

"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."

The study cost $2.4 million, and most of the money came from the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research into spirituality. The government has spent more than $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000.

Dean Marek, a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-author of the report, said the study said nothing about the power of personal prayer or about prayers for family members and friends.

Working in a large medical center like Mayo, Mr. Marek said, "You hear tons of stories about the power of prayer, and I don't doubt them."

In the study, the researchers monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals who received coronary bypass surgery, in which doctors reroute circulation around a clogged vein or artery.

The patients were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told that they were being prayed for; half were told that they might or might not receive prayers.

The researchers asked the members of three congregations — St. Paul's Monastery in St. Paul; the Community of Teresian Carmelites in Worcester, Mass.; and Silent Unity, a Missouri prayer ministry near Kansas City — to deliver the prayers, using the patients' first names and the first initials of their last names.

The congregations were told that they could pray in their own ways, but they were instructed to include the phrase, "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications."

Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.

Copyright New York Times@2006

interesting, jack....i'd no idea science had even considered taking the western notion of prayer seriously....

for myself, i tend to view it as a convulted interpretation of the eastern discipline of meditation, something else that has been studied scientifically recently, with more concrete results, in terms of states of conciousness and the like

i was raised a christain scientist, which has as its "medical" arm a network of "practicioners", people who for some authoritative reason are given the role of praying when someone is ill....the belief is that it helps....

didn't help my mom, who wasted away at home from ovarian cancer, without any medical help, in spite of her deep faith and the prayer of those practicioners.

so this is kind of a "duh!!! " article for me

[linskyjack]

The thing Iltos is that most studies show that Americans,by a pretty large majority,both pray and think their prayers are answered. Prayer is yet another form of superstition----that many people believe will actually work.

[iltos]

Originally Posted by linskyjack

The thing Iltos is that most studies show that Americans,by a pretty large majority,both pray and think their prayers are answered. Prayer is yet another form of superstition----that many people believe will actually work.

yeah...i believe that to be true, jack...imo, most cultures are driven by unrecognized superstition masking as cultural values.....it's the primary reason, methinks, that it's so difficult to actually discuss certain issues...the basic presumptions are so vastly different that it takes a long, long time just to find a beginning.

[linskyjack]

Yup, its difficult to accept the fact that the world is billions of years old and that you will die. Thats the basis of all religion--the fear of death.

[iltos]

Originally Posted by linskyjack

Yup, its difficult to accept the fact that the world is billions of years old and that you will die. Thats the basis of all religion--the fear of death.

tho i will add that i think that religion is also an attempt to give meaning to the processes of the universe....we got these big ol' brains, ya know....and they like to feel important

or at least justified

[Wiskycoo]

very interesting article.

[Guyzer]

Originally Posted by linskyjack

Yup, its difficult to accept the fact that the world is billions of years old and that you will die. Thats the basis of all religion--the fear of death.

Most people need some sort of crutch. For some it's drugs, some need alcohol and many take to religion.

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by Wimpy369

Most people need some sort of crutch. For some it's drugs, some need alcohol and many take to religion.

I'm not religious...and I pray

[DiSaidSo]

Originally Posted by iltos

didn't help my mom, who wasted away at home from ovarian cancer, without any medical help, in spite of her deep faith and the prayer of those practicioners.

so this is kind of a "duh!!! " article for me

Well then it was just God's will!

That way of thinking drives me out of my freakin mind. If God's going to have His will anyway.... then what's the point in asking him for things? If the prayer is "answered," then God was testing your faith. If it's not "answered," then He is now testing your patience a la Job. Now if only I'd known which test I was taking......

[linskyjack]

If there is a God, I assure you he or she has little concern with the health and well-being of people. Praying for divine intervention and then trying to explain why a seemingly wonderful person wasn't saved is kind of ludicrous.

[Wino]

If there were a god, I would be laying between Scarlet Johanson and Pam Anderson, and Angelina Jolie would be carrying my baby. The only person that prays more than I do to get laid, is mulder!

[Gabriel]

But then again, I don't feel tested by God...I am tested by life, and will expire from here some day.
Also I am aware that bad things can happen to me even that I pray.
Usually I don't pray for myself...except for maybe the occasional, "help"...and that is usually the extent of self praying.
If I pray for someone else, it is that they can handle what happens, and for people connected to them to carry on, say if they die.
Praying isn't always for miracles. Is it isn't petitioning God, or promising, or begging...at least not to me.......but I am not above that either.
To me it is like attaining an attitude inside, a positioning to all that is ahead and behind me...a right position...usually entails self-examination and utter honesty....and most important, I can tell if my praying is working by how I treat people on the outside of me.
I think it is hard, or impossible to measure prayer, or its affects. It is not totally an outward result, or a physical result (like a miraculous event). And healing is not merely physical either.
It would be odd if I believed that superstition (prayer), is what has changed me inside.

[DiSaidSo]

Originally Posted by Wino

If there were a god, I would be laying between Scarlet Johanson and Pam Anderson, and Angelina Jolie would be carrying my baby. The only person that prays more than I do to get laid, is mulder!

Oh my dear Wino. How I've missed you.

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by Wino

If there were a god, I would be laying between Scarlet Johanson and Pam Anderson, and Angelina Jolie would be carrying my baby. The only person that prays more than I do to get laid, is mulder!

Now that is really funny