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Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 15:23:15 -0000
To: agathiyar@yahoogroups.com
Subject: The Power of Prayer in Medicine
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People Who Are Prayed for Fare Better
By 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.
© 2001 WebMD Corporation. All rights reserved.
http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/1728.92943
