Spirituality and Healing: What Works

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A study by Pressman in 1990 of elderly women who had undergone surgical repair of hip fractures found that those with strong religious beliefs were able to walk farther at discharge, and also showed lower levels of depressive symptoms.

At the Duke University Medical Center, Dr. Harold Koenig, director of the Program on Religion, Aging, and Health, has conducted nearly a dozen studies. In a 1992 review, Dr. Koenig concluded that devout religiousness helps enhance health and well being, and helps protect against both anxiety and depression.

Another study by Dr. Koenig concluded that religious older adults have lower blood pressure and lower death rates from coronary heart disease than their nonreligious peers.

After a six-month follow-up study of 200 older adults in 1995, Dr. Koenig found that people who scored high in religious coping were found to be less subject to depression.

From the Dartmouth Medical School, a 1995 study by Dr. Thomas Oxman found that, among 232 older adults undergoing heart surgery, patients who were religious were three times less likely to have died six months after surgery than those who were not religious. Of 37 patients who described themselves as deeply religious, none died.

Duke University researchers found an association between increased immune function and regular attendance at religious services. The investigation, reported in the October 1997 issue of the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, involved 1,718 men and women over sixty-five, and reported that those who attended services at least once a week were about half as likely as nonattenders to have high blood levels of interleukin-6, a protein that regulates immune and inflammatory responses.

Preliminary data from an ongoing study by the Institute of Noetic Sciences suggest that enhanced spiritual well being may help women cope with and even survive breast cancer.

From THE BEST ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: WHAT WORKS? WHAT DOES NOT? by Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier.

Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, New York.