Faith and Healing

Studies suggesting that church going, religious beliefs, and prayer can improve morbidity and mortality have increasingly received attention in medical journals and the general media. One study at Duke University concluded that steady church attendance improves health and prolongs life (J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 1999; 54:M370-6). Some authorities, however, believe that researchers often use flawed methods to study the relation between health and religion. They point out that the cause-and-effect relations are frequently unclear because religious persons, who are often defined as regular attendees of worship services, are in general already healthier than nonreligious persons. In fact, several studies that report the beneficial effects of religion do not adequately adjust for health behaviors or sociodemographic factors, thereby casting substantial doubt on their conclusions.

However, some studies of intercessory prayer and some studies that accounted for baseline health and other variables have produced a modest amount of evidence that links religiosity with improved health. Experts are divided: Many cannot explain these results, and others continue to debate the possibility that a connection exists at all. Hundreds of years ago, medicine and religion were almost synonymous; in recent years, however, they have been almost completely separate. Emerging controversy surrounds the ways in which physicians should respond to this renewed tendency to link the two domains.