[InfiniteNow]

Results of a study of over 1800 participants with heart disease, randomly placed into one of three groups were released earlier this week. It is the largest study ever of it's kind. The groups into which heart disease patients were randomly placed are:

1) being told that people would pray for them and people actually praying
2) being told that people might pray for them and people actually praying
3) being told that people might pray for them and people didn't pray...

The study indicated that 59% of the people who were told that people would definitely pray died or their condition worsened, whereas groups 2 and 3 were about the same at just around 50%. So, this implies that people who knew others were praying for them and actually had those others praying for them did worse than those who weren't sure.


What do you make of this?


http://www.ahjonline.com/article/PII...06496/abstract (study)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5315333 (audio commentary on the study)

[Buffy]

Some would argue that prayer is a form of vanity, and as a venial sin, God is punishing those who have the audacity to believe that they are somehow special and that She would intervene simply because they asked. That's kinda cynical though, and actually, most people I saw interviewed on this story were doing it for others and had no intention of stopping because of this study.

It sure is bizzare, because with the sample size, 59% is well outside the expected error margin.... Typically, paranormal tests usually always hit that 50% /pure random result mark, but the thing is, they should have seen a placebo effect (positive results from the belief that a drug was being given, aka the power of positive thinking), but then again, maybe people got depressed when they thought that they were so far gone there was no hope except for prayer....

I'm sure someone will get a government grant to do a follow up study...

Statistically speaking,
Buffy

[InfiniteNow]

Slight bump.

I just love this because it does a harmonic little dance between science and religion, without accusations and without emotion. Just hard, objective science about soft, subjective prayer. Ooohhh... chills.

[sanctus]

The group 1 did worse because they didn't pray! This is not only to interpret in a religious way but the act of praying might initiate something in the body (self-induced placebo) because by praying you want to fight for living (if you are religious)...


EDIT by InfiniteNow. Mistakenly edited sanctus' post when my intention was to reply. The above is only a portion of the original post. Please accept my apologies, as this JMod multi-tasks entirely too often.

[Zythryn]

We don't yet fully understand the effect the mind has on our health.

I am curious if the results were due to the people being told others would pray for them thought that things must be bad if people were praying for them?? In other words one may think 'wow, if people are praying for me it must be serious'?

[HydrogenBond]

In my experience prayer works for what we need, not for what we want. Place oneself in dire straights until real needs arise and then pray. This would be a better experiment. "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just may just may find, you get what you need" Stones.

[TheBigDog]

Prayer helps an optimist keep his glass half full. Does it need to do more than that?

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

Prayer helps an optimist keep his glass half full. Does it need to do more than that?

Many people pray for others. Researching the effectiveness of this was the explicit intention of this study.


Things like:

Dear god, please don't let my dad die today. Let his sickness go away...

...apparently do more harm than good.

[sanctus]

So here i go again hoping that it is something like before it was edited (to the non-moderators you have to know the edit button is right next to the quote button so it is easy to edit while wanting to answer).

The group 1 did worse because they didn't pray! This is not only to interpret in a religious way but the act of praying might initiate something in the body (self-induced placebo) because by praying you want to fight for living (if you are religious) but since they knew somebody was praying for them they fought less. While the others had to pry ergo to fight if they wanted to be sure that they would get some benefit.
Even if the effects of the mind on the body aren't proven yet, I often heard doctors say that somebody is sick since a long time because he/she doesn't want to heal. So not praying ergo not fighting means for the bodynot really wanting to heal (at least if you are religious, otherwise you just fight and don't pray that should have the same effect).

Originally Posted by infinite

I just love this because it does a harmonic little dance between science and religion

Sorry, maybe it becomes a pogo now.

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by sanctus

The group 1 did worse because they didn't pray!

Actually we don't know this, there is no information about if the people prayed or not.

We can make the assumption that because they were told other people will pray for them they didn't see the need. I think that is a fairly weak assumption to make though.

As for the power of laughter/pray/positive thinking, I have heard stories that this has an affect on some illnesses. I honestly would be a bit surprised if it didn't have an effect as our mind and bodies seem to be extremely complicated biological system.

I would not be surprised to see that if more people in a group prayed, that group would have a better rate of recovery. I just don't believe this particular study can support or refute that idea.