WASHINGTON – Praying for sick strangers doesn’t improve their prospects of recovering, according to a large, carefully designed study that casts doubt on the widely held belief that praying for someone can help them heal.
The study of more than 700 heart patients, one of the most ambitious attempts to test the medicinal power of prayer, showed that those who had people praying for them from a distance, and without their knowledge, were no less likely to suffer a major complication, end up back in the hospital or die.
While skeptics of prayer welcomed the results, other researchers questioned the findings, and proponents of prayer maintained God’s influence lies beyond the reach of scientific validation.
Surveys have shown that millions of Americans routinely pray for themselves and for others when they or someone they know is sick. A growing body of evidence has found that religious people tend to be healthier than average, and that people who pray when they are ill are likely to fare better than those who do not. Many researchers think religious belief and practice can help people by providing social support and fostering positive emotions, which may produce beneficial responses by the body.
But the idea that praying for someone else – even when they are unaware of it – can affect a person’s health has been much more controversial. Several studies have purported to show that such prayer is beneficial, but they have been criticized as deeply flawed. The debate prompted a spate of new studies aimed at avoiding those shortcomings, including the new study, which is the first to test prayer at multiple centers.
The researchers acknowledged that it was impossible to make any firm conclusions because of the difficulty of studying something like prayer. The study, for example, could not accurately measure factors as fundamental as the “dose” of prayer administered and could not account for the possible effects of family members praying for patients on their own, the researchers noted.
“I really don’t want people to think we’re dissing prayer,” Krucoff said. “This study gives us a sense of where there might be therapeutic benefit that might be worth pursuing in future trials.”
Skeptics, however, said they were far from surprised by the findings.
“There’s nothing that we know in the universe that could account for how prayer or the healing intention of one group of people could influence the health outcomes of another group at a distance,” said Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. “It’s preposterous.”
But Rev. Raymond Lawrence, director of pastoral care at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York, disputed any suggestion the study disproved the power of prayer.
“Prayer can be and is helpful,” Lawrence said. “But to think that you can research it is inconceivable to me. Prayer is presumably a way of addressing God, and there’s no way to scientifically test God. God is not subject to scientific research.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
