Posted on 12/25/2004 5:44:07 PM PST by ijcr
Those who made their annual trip to church on Christmas day will have to think again. Research shows that regular churchgoers live longer than non-believers.
A 12-year study tracking mortality rates of more than 550 adults over the age of 65 found that those who attend services at least once a week were 35 per cent more likely to live longer than those who never attended church.
Doctors could prescribe a course of church attendance to benefit patients
The research also found that going to church boosted an elderly person's immune system and made them less likely to suffer clogged arteries or high blood pressure.
Susan Lutgendorf, psychology professor at the University of Iowa, who carried out the study, said: "There's something involved in the act of religious attendance, whether it's the group interaction, the world view or just the exercise to get out of the house. There's something that seems to be beneficial."
Robert Wallace, a co-author of the report, added that doctors could even prescribe a course of church attendance to benefit patients.
"It was an interesting and provocative find," he said. "I think that now, we will be trying to aggregate the meaning and experience of going to church to the extent that one can produce medical intervention based on a better understanding of that."
The researchers found that among individuals who reported never attending religious services, the risk of death over the 12-year period was 52 per cent.
By contrast, the risk of death of those who attended church services more than once a week was 17 per cent over the same period.
Thirty five per cent of the 64 participants who never attended church died before the end of the study.
By comparison, 85.5 per cent of participants who went to church twice or more a week survived.
Regular church attendance was associated with lower levels of Interleukin-6, a chemical that can cause arterial damage at elevated levels and is linked to age-related diseases.
Although the researchers acknowledged that regular churchgoers could lead more abstemious lives, they insisted that they had factored these variants into the study by examining a control group of equally healthy non-believers. The variation, they said, had made no appreciable difference.
"It is possible that more frequent religious attenders may have engaged in better health behaviours, such as exercise or lower dietary fat intake," the researchers wrote.
"The present data included a limited assessment of health behaviours such as smoking, sleep, alcohol intake, cigarette use and obesity.
"This is the first study of which we are aware to find support for the hypothesis that more frequent religious attendance in a population-based sample of older adults is associated with lower mortality."
Rev John Hardie, a Church of Scotland priest and former chaplain of St Paul's Cathedral in Dundee, celebrated his 88th birthday this year and attributed his longevity to a Christian way of life.
"If you live the type of life that a Christian should live and take things in modernation, then you do live longer," he said.
"I find that I can have a drop of alcohol now and then and I smoke a pipe, but I don't inhale. At the moment, I go to church once a week but I'm a bit unsteady on my pins and I find that I need another priest to help me lift the chalice when I take communion at the altar."
A Church of England spokesman said: "For some people, the fact that there is a greater power whom we are confident loves us and has our best interests at heart, must remove the daily stresses and worries of those who do not believe.
"But of course, faith is not an ant colony: there are probably as many different explanations for why this research has found what it has as there are people who took part."
Prof Lutgendorf's findings would appear to be borne out by a number of devoted Christians who have enjoyed remarkably long lives.
Dame Thora Hird, the actress who presented the BBC1 religious programme, Songs of Praise, lived to 91. She was a regular churchgoer before her death last year.
Pope John Paul II celebrated his 84th birthday this year and still carries out a gruelling schedule of travel and daily appointments.
Rev Edward Lewis, the chief executive of The Hospital Chaplaincies Council, said that although the research was "very interesting," it was not reflected in his experience.
"Sickness or illness hit people who go to church just as much as those who don't," he said. "People get cancer at 30 even if they go four or five times a week.
"Going to church doesn't protect us from all the horrible things that happen, but it gives us the strength to cope with them."
Praying on a regular basis helps beat stress.
Well, sure they live longer. Eternal life, anyone?
Or it could be that causality goes the opposite direction: healthy people may be more apt to get out of bed, get into the car, and actually attend church.
church goers should get lower insurance premiums :)
Church going can be observed, believing can't (n.b. the Parable of the Wheat and Tares). For those who are inveterate empiricists, only what can be observed "counts" (or can be counted).
One can list a large number of things correlated to longevity that are also correlated to church attendance. Perhaps these are also correlated with belief, but no guarantee.
I know a couple that goes to church every Sunday except Christmas and Easter. They say they leave their seats empty for those who never attend except for Christmas and Easter.
Can anyone explain what this sentence actually means?
It sounds to me like non-churchgoers are 65% more likely to live longer, which is clearly not the case from the rest of the article.
Believers are confident that Jesus walks at their side, upholding them. (Think: Footprints.)
The researchers found that among individuals who reported never attending religious services, the risk of death over the 12-year period was 52 per cent.
By contrast, the risk of death of those who attended church services more than once a week was 17 per cent over the same period.
Thirty five per cent[sic] of the 64 participants who never attended church died before the end of the study.
It is much easier to understand if you first recognize this error in the printing underlined above.
52% of 64 non-believers=35 of the 64 died, not 35% of 64.
Now, take the 17% above from the 52% and you have the 35% in the sentence you questioned.
The most obvious explanation is that believers find more joy in life and less stress.
I would find it very difficult to live life without faith, especially in these days when the dominant postmodernist attitude is a "cheerful nihilism" which isn't really all that cheerful when you look at it more closely.
Life without purpose, life constantly hiding from the fact of death, would be very angst-making, however much you tried to eat, drink, and be merry.
My goal is to live forever,So far so good!!!
Add this to the studies about prayer, which indicated a direct correlation to healing with prayer.
It is interesting that God allows believers to be around longer than those who do not believe. But that is exactly what is said in the Bible.
Faith is not empty.
If you ever bump into a website which feature a women's Catholic religious order they show most the nuns obit's as dying in their 80's and 90's.
Ping
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