The Hidden Link-Heart Health and Spirituality
The most provocative and substantive studies have been those that explored the once taboo topic of the effect prayer has on disease. I have often referred to spirituality as the “S word” in medicine. For too many years, modern medicine has focused on the body as a machine, minimized the impact of the body-mind link and aggressively negated and ignored the impact of the spirit. Fortunately, a few daring physicians and scientists have researched this fascinating arena.
The first study, conducted by Dr. Randy Byrd, M.D., at the University of California at San Francisco during the 1980s, involved 393 patients in a cardiac intensive-care unit, divided into experimental and control groups. All of the patients were seriously ill with a variety of heart ailments and were carefully matched for age and severity and type of disease. Dr. Byrd asked people of various faiths (Jews, Protestants, and Catholics) to pray for the sick individuals several times a day. Each person had at least seven persons praying for a rapid recovery, prevention of complications, and holding the belief that the prayer would be beneficial to the patient. This double-blind study (meaning neither the patients or doctors knew the group assignment) had astonishing results: Despite the similarities, the experimental (prayed for) group experienced a statistically significant decrease of serious complications, including pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), congestive heart failure, cardiac arrests, and pneumonia. Even more remarkable, no one in the experimental group died.
Another study that was conducted more recently in 1998 and reported at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in 1998, conducted by Mitch Krucoff, MD, a Duke University heart specialist, had similar results. Entitled “Monitor and Actualization of Noetic Trainings (MANTRA),” this double blind study, divided 150 patients in 5 groups of 30. Three of the groups received relaxation, guided imagery or touch therapies. The names of the fourth group were placed into the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Carmelite nuns in Balitmore, to Buddhist monks in Nepal, Christian fundamentalist groups and Moravians to pray for them. The fifth group received standard medical care only.
The angioplasty patients with acute coronary syndromes who were simultaneously prayed for by seven different religious groups around the world did 50%-100% better during their hospital stay than patients who were not prayed for. Other angioplasty patients who received either touch therapy, stress relaxation, or guided imagery showed a 30%-50% trend of improved outcomes during hospitalization compared to patients who didn’t receive such therapies.
Dr. Krucoff commented that although the study was too small to offer statistically significant comparison, the results, “are highly intriguing, and not what most traditional physicians would have expected. “Our data show beneficial trends. Our goal was to conduct as scientifically rigorous and reasonable a trial as has ever been undertaken to look at what else, besides pills and procedures, might help us treat patients.” A larger 1,500 patient trial was expected to be conducted at five medical centers across the US.
The study design used objective physiological measurements, such as continuous EKG monitoring, blood pressure, heart rate, and clinical outcomes, to quantify the effects of spiritual energy in cardiac patients before, during and after invasive procedures. The outcomes are contrary to our limited, mechanical view of the human body. How does prayer from thousands of miles away impact the body in a helpful way and enhance healing? If we consider ourselves as separate human beings, there isn’t a logical answer. But if we consider otherwise, perhaps there is one.
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