Largest Study of Prayer to Date Finds It Has No Power to Heal

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Largest Study of Prayer to Date Finds It Has No Power

to Heal

 

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http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-prayer31mar31,0,6557135.story?coll=la\

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By Denise Gellene and Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff

Writers

March 31, 2006

 

The largest study yet on the therapeutic power of

prayer by strangers has found that it provided no

benefit to the recovery of patients who had undergone

cardiac bypass surgery.

 

In an unexpected twist, patients who knew prayers were

being said for them had more complications after

surgery than those who did not know, researchers

reported Thursday.

 

 

The complications were minor, and doctors surmised

that they could have been caused by the increased

stress on patients worried that their conditions were

so bad they needed prayers.

 

Father Dean Marek, a Catholic priest who was involved

in the research, said he wasn't surprised by the

results.

 

" I am always a little leery about intercessory

prayer, " said Marek, director of chaplain services at

the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. " What we have in

mind for someone else may not be what they have in

mind for themselves…. It is clearly manipulative of

divine action and personal choice. "

 

Dr. Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at

Harvard Medical School and one of the study's lead

researchers, added: " Nothing this study has produced

should interfere with people praying for each other. "

 

Some scientists hoped the results of the $2.5-million

study, conducted at six U.S. medical centers, would

bring an end to the long controversy over therapeutic

prayer.

 

" There have now been two big studies, with hundreds

and hundreds of patients, that show no effect, " said

Dr. Harold G. Koenig, professor of psychiatry and

behavioral sciences at Duke University. " Let's move on

now and direct our money somewhere else. "

 

Some believers in prayer concurred.

 

Sister Carol Rennie, prioress of St. Paul's Monastery

in St. Paul, Minn., whose prayer group participated in

the study, said faith couldn't be scientifically

analyzed. " God must be smiling broadly, " she said. " It

tells me, frankly, that God's way of working with

people is a mystery and that technology really can't

determine the effects of prayer. "

 

Scientists have been trying for at least a decade to

determine whether organized prayer on the behalf of

others can influence the outcome of medical treatment.

 

Previous attempts, however, were flawed by

experimental and methodological errors that led

critics to dismiss findings, both pro and con.

 

Thursday's study was intended to settle the matter in

the most scientific manner possible. It was funded

primarily by the John Templeton Foundation, a group

based in Pennsylvania that encourages the study of

spirituality and science. Results will be published

next week in American Heart Journal.

 

The study was designed as a randomized and blinded

trial, meaning that most patients did not know whether

someone was praying for them or not. Such trials are

considered the gold standard for scientific proof.

 

More than 1,800 patients were divided into three

groups: those who were told someone was praying for

them; those who were told only that someone might pray

for them and got prayers; and those who were told

someone might pray for them but received no prayers.

About 65% of the patients said they strongly believed

in the power of prayer.

 

Two Catholic monasteries and one Protestant group

offered the prayers. They were given patients' first

names and the first initial of their last names. The

groups started praying the night before surgery and

continued for two weeks.

 

All members of the prayer groups recited the same

intercession, asking for " a successful surgery and a

quick, healthy recovery and no complications. "

 

Researchers said they didn't ask family members of the

sick people to stop praying because it would have been

unethical to do so, meaning some people received more

prayers than others.

 

The results showed that prayers had no beneficial

effect on patients' recovery 30 days after surgery.

Overall, 59% of patients who knew they were being

prayed for had complications, compared to 51% of the

patients who did not receive prayers. The difference

was not considered statistically significant.

 

Atrial fibrillation, a fluttering of the heart that

can be related to stress, was the most common

complication in all groups but was more likely to

occur among patients who knew others were praying for

them.

 

All groups were just as likely to develop infections

or die.

 

" We conclude that telling people introduces the stress

response, " said Dr. Charles Bethea of Integris Baptist

Medical Center in Oklahoma City and a study

researcher.

 

He surmised that patients thought, " Am I so sick that

they had to call in the prayer team? "

 

Dr. Richard P. Sloan, a professor of behavioral

medicine at Columbia University School of Medicine,

who was not involved in the research, said the study

underscored the futility of trying to measure the

power of prayer.

 

One problem in the study, he said, was that in

addition to the organized prayer, some patients prayed

for themselves and received prayers from families,

friends, people they work with or their congregations.

 

" They have absolutely no idea how much prayer

individuals in any of the groups received, " Sloan

said. " If we can't know that, we can't draw any

conclusions whatsoever about the intervention. "

 

Bob Barth of Silent Unity, the prayer organization in

Lee's Summit, Mo., that was the Protestant group

involved in the study, said the results didn't shake

his confidence in prayer. " People of faith don't need

a prayer study to know that prayer works, " he said.

 

But Koenig said clinical trials would never answer

that question. " Science is powerful and wonderful in

determining the orbit of the Earth, the speed of a

bullet, the power of a new drug. But now we've asked

science to study something that occurs outside of

space and time.

 

" This shows you shouldn't try to prove the power of

the supernatural, " he said.