Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer

[Chimaera182]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/he...th&oref=slogin

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

In another of the study's findings, a significantly higher number of the patients who knew that they were being prayed for — 59 percent — suffered complications, compared with 51 percent of those who were uncertain. The authors left open the possibility that this was a chance finding. But they said that being aware of the strangers' prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety.

"It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?" Dr. Bethea said.

The study also found that more patients in the uninformed prayer group — 18 percent — suffered major complications, like heart attack or stroke, compared with 13 percent 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 reason the study was so widely anticipated was that it was led by Dr. Benson, who in his work has emphasized the soothing power of personal prayer and meditation.

At least one earlier study found lower complication rates in patients who received intercessory prayers; others found no difference. A 1997 study at the University of New Mexico, involving 40 alcoholics in rehabilitation, found that the men and women who knew they were being prayed for actually fared worse.

The new study was rigorously designed to avoid problems like the ones that came up in the earlier studies. But experts said the study could not overcome perhaps the largest obstacle to prayer study: the unknown amount of prayer each person received from friends, families, and congregations around the world who pray daily for the sick and dying.

Bob Barth, the spiritual director of Silent Unity, the Missouri prayer ministry, said the findings would not affect the ministry's mission.

"A person of faith would say that this study is interesting," Mr. Barth said, "but we've been praying a long time and we've seen prayer work, we know it works, and the research on prayer and spirituality is just getting started."


Thoughts?

[Aramant]

I'm something of a good-natured cynic. I don't buy into religion or spirituality, but at the same time, I'm not hostile towards it, or religious/spiritual people. If it works for them, great. It's just not my cup of tea.

That said, I get a little self-righteous smirk when I read something like "The government has spent more than $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000". Things like that, in my opinion, just drive another nail into the coffin of the "separation between church and state", and I can't help but note the correlation between a white Christian president and $2.3 million in funding for Christian studies. I don't recall hearing about the U.S. government ever funding $2.3 million for studies in Buddhist, Muslim, or Judaist beliefs and practices.

Aside from the hippy liberal soapbox approach, I agree with the critics who have complained that scientific studies of religious or spiritual matters are counter-productive. These scientific Thomases are trying to stick their fingers through the nail-holes all over again, but that completely opposes the whole point of having faith.

Also, if God does exist, I'd have to wonder if he'd grant those prayers anyway. The people may have been praying for the patients, but the researchers solicited those prayers for their thesis. Ultimately, any prayers in studies like these are (at least in part) prayers for more grant money, press exposure, and fame. That's hardly Christian.

[dragon wench]

I don't quite know what to say...
I'm somewhat thunderstruck that so much time and funding has been put to something like the "power of prayer." (I think that's what the fundies call it anyway)

But surely that money could have been put to a much better use

[Magrus]

If they want research done, I can point them in the right direction. I wouldn't quite say "prayer", but I was witness to a 30-something year old man who had horrible problems with his knee who had been through multiple failed surgeries end up "healed" by a mutual friend of ours after a month of "treatments". Nothing truly instantaneous, however, our friend wasn't any doctor, and the doctors had told the man he wouldn't walk without a limp ever again, yet now he walks fine.

[Aztaroth]

Quote:

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.

I hope I wont be thought less of when I confess that I laughed after reading that single line. If I could have, I'd have withheld falling off my chair, laughing so hard my sides were bursting, and writhing in mirth upon the floor until after I read the whole thing. As it was, I couldn't hold back.

I'm pretty much as cynical as they come... I've practically been raised to be an atheist, and I live up to the role. Not in the sense that I ridicule or behave offensively toward those who believe in something, but you get my point

That study doesn't only tick off my atheist side, but also my stupidity-detector. And I really hope no one will be offended...

What the hell are they thinking, using 2,4 million on a study to see if prayers affect people undergoing heart surgery?? That money could feed a
HUGE amount of starving people all over the world! Or hell, it could actually be used to give the patients that were prayed for better treatment, thus almost guranteeing their recovery instead of telling a bunch of people to pray for them so that the government then could say that hospitals don't need as much money as before and people should pray for the sick more?? Granted, that'd be good if it actually worked, but seriously!!! And what if it had worked?? Would they close all hospitals everywhere and give a list of people needing treatment to everyone in the world and telling them "Hey, pray for these guys so we don't have to waste our money on actually giving them treatment!" That might be a bit of an exagerration, but still!

I need to stop before the goverment comes and kills me...

[Lestat]

Quote:

"... am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?"

This idea of a "prayer team" suddenly seems strangely appealing. Hell, you can base a whole B-series for TV around this idea.
"We've got a double open heart by pass, and we're loosing the patient! Send for the prayer team" cue to rushing envoy that gets to the Prayers R us HQ where a oecumenical team (w/ Father O'Malley, Sister Belladonna, Rev. MacKenzie, Rabbi Feinstein & Mullah Ibrahim) gets praying on hearing the news.

[Ashen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aztaroth I hope I wont be thought less of when I confess that I laughed after reading that single line. If I could have, I'd have withheld falling off my chair, laughing so hard my sides were bursting, and writhing in mirth upon the floor until after I read the whole thing. As it was, I couldn't hold back.

hah, same here! I couldn't believe it really. Well...

Okies, I won't comment on the spearation of the church and the state which is an issue that screams from this, but let's just say this - I wasn't aware that the US had no homeless, hungry, those with no education etc.

[Luis Antonio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dragon wench I don't quite know what to say... I'm somewhat thunderstruck that so much time and funding has been put to something like the "power of prayer." (I think that's what the fundies call it anyway) But surely that money could have been put to a much better use

I agree.

I think it is conforting to know that someone cares for you, and that may help, but it is pointless to study that and spend a lot of cash on that. Praying and having faith may help, yet it really can make people more anxious about things, and specially with heart diseases this seems really not the goal we seek. I remember, when dad had a heart atack, we should not stress nor make him anxious so that he'd recover better.

Anyways, I wouldnt like to discuss this with mom or my grandma, cause I'd be whacked after I tell how I feel about it...

[Lestat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slate's Human Nature Column A large, long-term study suggests prayer doesn't help patients recover from surgery. Patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered more complications than those who didn't know one way or the other, and patients who were being prayed for without their knowledge suffered more major complications than those who weren't prayed for. Secular takes: 1) Can we please stop wasting money on prayer studies now? 2) If you're going to pray for somebody, have the grace not to tell them, since it might cause them complications from "performance anxiety." Excuses: 1) This study was just about prayer from strangers, so maybe prayer from your family and friends helps. 2) Maybe the benefits were obscured because some people got more prayer than others. 3) Your study is no match for my faith and anecdotes. (For Human Nature's previous update on failures of prayer, click here.)

Pretty much sums it up.

[Yarr]

What? Someone made a huge study on wether or not prayer works? And people acctually anticipated it?
You could have just asked me, and I'd tell you the truth:
Prayer has no effect, other than that a person who really really believe in such fairytales might get a bit more willpower, or hope.

This is one of the absolutely dumbest things I have heard about in the last year. And that's saying a lot.

God bless America!

Sincerely,
Yarr, a man who is not dependent upon a fictional character, but makes his own decisions and lives his own life as he sees fit.

[Fiona]

Well if I was god I think I would be pretty insulted that people imagine I am going to intervene on the basis of a *rigged* popularity contest

[Chimaera182]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aztaroth I need to stop before the goverment comes and kills me...

If you pray the government won't come after you or won't find you, you'll get a 50% chance of having your prayer answered. It can't hurt.

[Maharlika]

...makes me wonder if the same study would give the same results if done in a country when the vast majority of its constituents believe in the Power of Prayer...

[dragon wench]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chimaera182 If you pray the government won't come after you or won't find you, you'll get a 50% chance of having your prayer answered. It can't hurt.

What's that, a more modern version of Pascal's Wager?

[Chimaera182]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dragon wench What's that, a more modern version of Pascal's Wager?

-pretends to have a clue and nods knowingly-