Logon
Translate

User login

GTranslate

French German Italian Portuguese Russian Spanish

The Home of Evolutioneers

Faith & Healing

Popular practices like these, as well as the growing belief in the medical community that what happens in a person’s mind (and, possibly, soul) can be as important to health as what happens o­n the cellular level, are leading many doctors to embrace the God they banished from the clinic long ago in favor of technological and pharmaceutical progress.


All over the medical establishment, legitimate scientists are seeking the most ethical, effective ways to combine patients’ spiritual and religious beliefs with high-tech treatment. Former mutual-fund tycoon Sir John Templeton spends as much as $30 million a year funding scientific projects that explore the nature of God. "The Anatomy of Hope," a meditation o­n the effects of optimism and faith o­n health, by New Yorker medical writer Jerome Groopman, M.D., is coming out early next year. The National Institutes of Health plans to spend $3.5 million over the next several years o­n "mind/body" medicine. And this weekend Harvard Medical School will hold a conference o­n spirituality and health, focusing o­n the healing effects of forgiveness. "There’s been a tremendous shift in the medical profession’s openness to this topic," says Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania who is studying the biological effects of meditation and prayer o­n the brain. "People like me are very intrigued by what we’re seeing."


Over the past decade, researchers have been conducting hundreds of studies, trying to scientifically measure the effects of faith and spirituality o­n health. Can religion slow cancer? Reduce depression? Speed recovery from surgery? Lower blood pressure? Can belief in God delay death? While the research results have been mixed, the studies inevitably run up against the difficulty of using scientific methods to answer what are, essentially, existential questions. How do you measure the power of prayer? Can o­ne person’s prayer be stronger—and more effective—than another’s? How do you separate the health benefits of going to church or synagogue from the fact that people who attend religious services tend to smoke less and be less depressed than those who don’t?    People who regularly attend church have a 25 percent reduction in mortality—that is, they live longer—than people who are not churchgoers. This is true even after controlling for variables intrinsically linked to Sundays in the pew, like social support and healthy lifestyle. While the data were culled mainly from Christian churchgoers, Powell says the findings should apply to any organized religion. "This is really powerful," she says.  In an effort to understand the health differences between believers and nonbelievers, scientists are beginning to parse the individual components that compose religious experience. Using brain scans, researchers have discovered that meditation can change brain activity and improve immune response; other studies have shown it can lower heart rate and blood pressure, both of which reduce the body’s stress response. (Most religions incorporate meditative practices, like chanting or prayer, into their traditions.)


Even intangibles, such as the impact of forgiveness, may boost health as well. In a survey of 1,500 people published earlier this year, Neal Krause, a researcher at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, found that people who forgive easily tend to enjoy greater psychological well-being and have less depression than those who hold grudges. "There’s a physiology of forgiveness," says Dr. Herbert Benson, head of the Mind/Body Medical Institute, and a host of the upcoming Harvard conference. "When you do not forgive, it will chew you up."  Using prayer to effect health is perhaps the most controversial subject of research. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, 84 percent of Americans said praying for others can have a positive effect o­n their recovery, and 74 percent said that would be true even if they didn’t know the patient.


A recent survey scrutinized dozens of investigations into religion’s effect o­n health, and rated the strength of the most popular hypotheses. Here’s how they fared:


Persuasive evidence · Church/service attendance promotes longer life


Moderate evidence · Religion or spirituality protects against cardiovascular disease· Being prayed for improves physical recovery from acute illness


Inadequate evidence · Religion or spirituality protects against cancer mortality


Very weak evidence · Religion or spirituality improves recovery from acute illness· Religion or spirituality protects against disability· Religion or spirituality slows the progression of cancer


Source: Andrew Newberg, M.D., Univ. of Pa.; Amer. Psychologist Journal; Rick Rogers, UC Boulder; William Strawbridge, UCSF  Printable version


Overall, the prayer studies have not shown clear effects, and even religious proponents are skeptical that it can ever—or should ever—be tested. So many people already pray for the sick that scientists cannot establish a control group; when the prescription is prayer, patients often get it whether doctors want them to or not. This "noise"—the extra prayers of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, church members—may taint trial results. And the studies prompt questions that no o­ne, not even the best scientists, will ever be able to answer: Can o­ne extra prayer mean the difference between life and death? Can prayer be dosed, the way medicines are? Does harder praying mean better treatment by God? In the minds of many, especially theologians, those questions border o­n the sacrilegious. "To think that God would o­nly respond to the group that was prayed for and leave the other group out in the dark is based o­n total misconceptions of how God responds to prayer," says Cynthia Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. "God is not a machine who responds mechanically."    Koenig, director of Duke’s Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health, is leading the charge for a better understanding of patients’ religious and spiritual beliefs in the medical setting. "It just makes too much sense," he says, when patient after patient tells him, "Doctor, religion is the most important thing; it keeps me going." Koenig advocates that doctors take spiritual histories of any patient they are likely to have an o­ngoing relationship with, asking questions like: "Is religion a source of comfort or stress? Do you have any religious beliefs that would influence decision-making? Do you have any spiritual needs that someone should address?"    By Claudia KalbNEWSWEEK With Anne Underwood, Ellise Pierce, Joan Raymond, Jenny Hontz, Karen Springen and Sarah Childress

jordan shoes for sale outlet Shoes