Prayer Helps Heart Patients

	October 26, 1999 - Heart patients who had someone praying over them
without their knowledge suffered 10% fewer complications, a study found.
	"It's potentially a natural explanation we don't understand yet. It's
potentially also a supernatural mechanism," said William Harris, a heart
researcher who was lead author of the study. Harris and other researchers at
the Mid America Heart Institute studied 990 patients admitted during a year to
their coronary care unit.
	The patients were randomly divided into 2 groups. In one, patients
were prayed for daily by community volunteers for 4 weeks; the other patients
didn't have anyone assigned to pray for them. The patients, their families and
their caregivers were not even told they were in a study. The volunteers were
told only the first names of the patients and asked to pray daily for their
speedy recovery with no complications.
	After 4 weeks, the prayed-for patients had suffered about 10% less
complications, ranging from chest pain to cardiac arrest, researchers reported
in Monday's issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, published by the
American Medical Association. The findings suggest that prayer might be an
effective addition to standard medical care.
	At the same time, Harris acknowledged that his study had limitations.
Among other things, many patients in the comparison group undoubtedly had
friends and relatives praying for them, too.
	Both studies tallied complications using their own scoring systems,
said Dr. Herbert Benson. Other studies have found no apparent benefits to
being prayed for, and in one, prayed for patients actually fared worse, Benson
said. Benson said medical research has shown that people who believe in God
or in prayer generally fare better than those who don't. What remains unproven
is whether prayer itself makes a difference, he said.