No benefit of prayer found after surgery...Some question science of study

[NJCher]

No benefit of prayer found after surgery
Some question science of heart patient study

By Rob Stein, Associated Press | March 31, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Praying for other people to recover from an illness is ineffective, according to the largest, best-designed study to try to examine the power of prayer to heal strangers at a distance.

The study of more than 1,800 heart bypass surgery patients found that those who had other people praying for them had as many complications as those who did not. In fact, one group of patients who knew they were the subject of prayers fared worse.

The long-awaited results, the latest in a series of studies that have failed to find any benefit from ''distant" or ''intercessory" prayer, came as a blow to the hopes of some that scientific research would validate the popular notion that people can influence the health of people even if they don't know someone is praying for them.

More at... http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/31/no_benefit_of_prayer_found_after_surgery?mode=PF




Cher

[cassiepriam]

1. I think that this is an interesting study and it should be discussed

by those of us who are interested in alternative/complementary health issues.

This study indicates that prayer has no positive value, in fact, may make patients more ill. Some very interesting questions are raised here.

If prayers have no power, as some think, how do prayers then have the power to make people worse? That seems like a contradiction. This study suggests that prayers do have power, but a negative one!

But why would that be? What could explain prayers making people sicker?

One point of interest is the fact the patients were prayed for by strangers. I wonder if the results would have been different if they knew that friends and family were praying for them?

Also one of the researchers wondered if the fact a patient was being prayed for made them nervous, because it meant that the doctors thought them really ill if they were signed up for the "prayer team".

I also wonder what kinds of prayers were said by the prayer teams?

Interesting study and I think it should be given some thought.

From a karmic standpoint, some think that prayers will not work if there is a karmic mandate on the illness, that is, a lesson to be learned so the patient will not be released from that lesson with prayer. But from a spiritual standpoint I can not think why prayers would make things worse?
Maybe someone else has some ideas!

Thanks NJ Cher for posting this!

[rumpel]

2. tons of articles & research & links

http://www.noetic.org/publications/research/main.cfm

I hope you are not discouraged.

[cassiepriam]

4. Many thanks for the articles rumpel

I am not discouraged, I am intrigued.

I am part scientist, part mystic, so science does not scare me!
(BTW I am meant to integrate those two parts of myself in this life, not an easy assignment.)

Besides if we close our eyes to science, aren't we as bad as the right wing fundies who reject everything the scientists report, from global warming to evolution?

Currently I am working on a project, I will be teaching some classes on CAM (Complementary and Alternative Health) to medical personnel, so I am looking at all the scientific research. I must be ethical and honest about what the research says, whether the research results are good or bad. That is my job as a scientist.

In this life I am supposed to use my spirituality in a practical down to earth way, in past lives I just meditated on the mountain top. Towards that end I have to address the science, and left brain part of folks. That is why I came back with strong right and left brain.

[DemExpat]

8. About your classes on CAM.....

I took an excellent course as part of my Human Geography degree last year in CAM and it was an eye opener! Especially how the dominant scientific approach has actively lobbied to marginalize "folk" and "natural" therapies used through the ages - especially by women - and that people keep using CAM for the benefical aspects of it - if not a cure - then for the therapeutic relaitonship part of it, that CAM often make people feel better, better able to cope..... along with any valuable placebo effect. There are some social scientists who advocate using people's subjective experiences in studies along with scientific studies, as some CAM cannot be easily tested scientifically - one remedy for one symptom - as in Homeopathy.


Anyway, the course gave me an excellent historical and sociological review of CAM and medicine, and at the end, reminded me how the issue of fraud must be addressed in CAM just as in medicine, but that the valuable experiences that people have with CAM cannot be dismissed because they cannot be scientifically proven.

Your path sounds very interesting, Cassiepriem. I am earning my University degree now at a later time in my life for a similar reason as your being busy with science and mysticism. My life was very much dominated with my using my feelings and intutition to view life, and I felt it important in this life to develop more of the analytical and objective approach as well.

Balance is important to me!

:hi:

DemEx

[cassiepriam]

11. DemEx that is very interesting, I like the approach of the class

you took. That is the direction I am hoping to go in with the classes I will be teaching.

Yes it is difficult to study some of the CAMS, the research designs are tricky. And yes, just because we cannot study it does not mean it doesn't exist.

Good luck on your studies!

[LaurenG]

3. I agree with Cassie

I had this discussion in the Religion forum yesterday. I won't argue with skeptics but I will state my viewpoint. There are many studies done on the effects of prayer and good thoughts and those who are ill. Bernie Siegel, M.D. has written about this and many others whose names escape me at this moment. Too many people remember feeling nurtured during surgery after those working on them have prayed and or whispered positive affirmations of healing.

I have seen with my eyes the effects of healing and prayer on others however unscientifically done, it was noticed by the healer and healee.

Not everything that is published is accurate and that is one of many studies. IMHO it works.


on edit: Larry Dossey, another doc who uses prayer.

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9607/13/nfm/healing/index.html

[MissWaverly]

5. It is baloney

I think that there is much that we do not understand, but I knew a woman who was undergroing
chemo and was not doing well at all. Her husband had received novenas that came as cards
and her husband wanted to throw them away as something silly. I begged him to put them
on her bedside table. She rallied and is still with us. Her cancer is in remission and
has been so for the last year and a half. I am telling you that those prayer cards helped,
I don't know how or why. Maybe it makes a difference how the prayers are made, are they
done by individuals who feel the suffering of the world and are begging God for mercy or
are they said as words mumbled off a card but people just going through the motions.

[Grateful for Hope]

6. I was thinking the same thing

that it is the way one prays that makes a difference. I think studies that address prayer need to control for this very important variable.

[MissWaverly]

7. I have a feng shui book

it says that clutter stands in the way of spiritual growth so I went in and cleaned my
boss' cluttered office while she was away, it's amazing how many have said the place
"feels better." How can this be? I think there are spiritual forces that we do not
comprehend.

[Ecumenist]

9. I agree wth you Waverly...

I have seen far too much unexplainable turnarounds when medicine and all science give no hope. In fact, I'm a study in the healing power and miracle of prayer. Noone will ever tell me anything different.

[MissWaverly]

32. Thank you

Many people say they feel better after prayer. Comfort the sick is no joke.

[arikara]

10. I read one of Gregg Braden's books on the subject of prayer

Basically he says that there are 5 modes of prayer, 4 of which aren't that effective but are most commonly used. The fifth mode, which he calls the lost mode of prayer is an active form based in achieving the feeling that the prayer has already been answered, rather than the thought of asking that the answer come to pass through divine intervention. He bases it on ancient manuscripts and also ties it in to quantum physics.

My feeling is that the studies didn't take into consideration how the participants prayed, they just had groups of people petitioning for the patients to recover.

I highly recommend the book, and any others of Gregg Braden's that you can find. Unfortunately some really interesting ones are out of print.

"The Isaiah Effect: Decoding the Lost Science of Prayer and Prophecy"

http://tinyurl.com/pyr4r

[cassiepriam]

12. Do you mind telling us what the 4 other kinds of prayer are?

This is very interesting.

[arikara]

15. Here they are slightly paraphrased from the book

Colloquial Prayer

We speak to God in our own words, informally describing problems or giving thanks for the blessings in our lives: "Dear God, please, this one time, if you allow my car to get to the gas station at the next exit of the freeway, I promise that I'll never let the gas tank get this low again."

Petitionary Prayer

We claim our good from the creative forces of our world for specific things or outcomes. Petitionary prayer may be formal or in our own words: "Mighty 'I Am' presence, I claim the right to heal."

Ritualistic Prayer

Here we repeat a predetermined sequence of words, perhaps on special occasions or at prescribed times. Bedtime prayers, "Now I lay me down to sleep..." etc.

Meditative Prayer

A meditative prayer is a prayer beyond words. In meditation, we are silent, still, open, and aware of the presence of the creative forces within our world and our bodies. In our stillness, we allow creation to express itself through us in the moment.

The following is taken from his website. Lots more interesting info there too.
http://www.greggbraden.com/lost_mode.php3

Comparing Modes of Prayer Through the Example of Global Peace

Logic-based prayer: asking for intervention

1. We Focus upon present conditions where we believe that peace does not exist.

2. We may feel helpless, powerless or angry at the events and conditions that we are witness to.

3. We employ our prayer of asking by inviting divine intervention from a higher power to bring peace to bear upon individuals, conditions and places where we believe that peace is absent.

4. Through our asking, we may unknowingly affirm the very conditions that we least desire. When we say "Please let there be peace," for example, we are declaring that peace is not present in a particular situation. In doing so, we may actually fuel the condition that we have chosen to change.

5. We continue to ask for intervention until we see the change actually come to pass in our world.


Feeling-based prayer: knowing that our prayer is already answered

1. We witness all events, those of peace and those that we see as the absence of peace, as possibilities without judgement of right, wrong, bad or good.

2. We release our judgement of the situation by Blessing those conditions that have caused us pain. The Blessing does not condone or consent to the event or condition. Rather, it acknowledges that the event is part of the single source of all that is. (Please see the book, Walking Between the Worlds: The Science of Compassion, for details.)

3. By feeling the feelings of our prayer already answered, we demonstrate the ancient quantum principle stating that the conditions of peace within our bodies are mirrored in the world beyond our bodies.

4. We acknowledge the power of our prayer and know (feel) that the focus of our prayer has already come to pass.

5. Our prayer now consists of:

a. acknowledging the peace already is present in our world by living from the knowledge that such changes have occurred.

b. empowering our prayer by giving thanks for the opportunity to choose peace over suffering.

[Grateful for Hope]

16. Thank you so much

for taking the time to share this info with us.

I have read a little of Greg Braden (through his website), and, I must admit, I have forgotten how insightful (IMHO) he is.

Do you know of Catherine Ponder?

[cassiepriam]

18. Tell us about Ponder please nt

[Grateful for Hope]

21. Catherine Ponder

wrote about prayer. I read a book of hers many years ago. I have not googled her name as yet, so, I don't know the name of the book.

What I read really resonated with me as she, in essence, said that when we pray for an outcome, we need to pray as if the outcome has already occurred. When we do this, it is to give thanks for the outcome.

She viewed prayer that asked for an outcome as concentrating on the lack of the outcome as opposed to concentrating on the presence of the outcome. This type of prayer, in her opinion, was far less efficient.

She wrote in a simple manner which I really liked as I believe that there is wisdom in simplicity.

[cassiepriam]

23. Very interesting, about praying for an outcome

Some of the other prayer research (Dossey et al) suggests the opposite,
do not pray for a specific outcome, but instead pray that God's will be done.

I use both strategies. First pray that God's will be done, then for specific outcome, and I use the manifesting technique in my mind and in my heart chakra like Braden and Ponder suggest.

[Grateful for Hope]

25. I hear you, Cassie

And the element of God's will surely must enter into prayer.

When my mom died (4 1/2 years ago), I was having a hard time praying for her recovery (she was in a medically-induced coma as her lungs had collapsed) because I wasn't sure if she really wanted to live. She had been greatly upset about 9/11 and the anthrax "attacks", and, since she became so ill immediately following the anthrax incidents, I wondered if her illness was not only her will, but also God's will.

So, I simply prayed that the outcome be whatever she needed it to be and that she would find peace and happiness.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us, Cassie!!

[cassiepriam]

27. Thank you for all your comments

This has been a really good discussion!

And yes sometimes the best prayer for a loved one who is critically ill, is that God's will be done, and that the loved one not suffer.

[cassiepriam]

19. Many thanks, very interesting. Combines prayer with manifestation?

[cassiepriam]

13. There are unanswered questions in the study summary put out in the

popular press this weekend.

What kind of prayers were said?
How did the patients feel about being prayed for?
What was the spiritual level of the patients?
Spiritual level of the ones praying?
What kind of complications occurred in the patients in the prayer group?

On the one hand, obviously we need to be aware of fraud in CAM as well as general healthcare, for example people are being harmed here in this country with contaminated herbal products from third world countries.

But also there are things we cannot study yet. We all know that love exists, all we have to do is think of our spouse, children, pets, etc to know that it is real. We know that love is a very powerful force but there is no way to measure it with our current technology. Perhaps prayer is in the same category.

Also karma is very complex, there may be karmic reasons why a person would not get better with prayer, or may get worse with prayer.

At any rate the full report of this prayer study does not come out until Tuesday in the American Heart Journal. There will be buzz about it in the medical community. But it most likely will not change anyone's behavior. Those who believe in prayer will continue to pray I would imagine.

I guess my deal is that I want to do things in a responsible careful way, and do no harm. So I am always willing to examine any data that suggests there may be problems with something I am doing.

I was given some gifts and I want to use them in an ethical way. But I admit that the idea that prayer can harm people is a hard idea to swallow, and I will have to give it some more thought. I am enjoying the discussion about it, and everyone's opinion. It think it is good to do this, and hear all sides of an issue. That is how we learn and grow.

[Grateful for Hope]

14. I was giving this some thought today

and, I realized that it would be very, very difficult to study the effects of prayer because there are sooo many variables to take into consideration.

Some variables I thought of:

- Type of illness
- knowing one is being prayed for vs. not knowing
- Type of prayer (i.e., "rote" prayer, prayers of gratitude for envisioned recovery, etc.)
- Being prayed for vs. not being prayed for
- Patient's feeling about recovery (does the patient really want to live?)

These are just a few variables, and, as you mentioned, there is also the issue of spiritual level of each participant, etc.

I also considered that it would be very difficult to isolate a group of patients who are not being prayed for, as, we can never be sure that someone, somewhere is not praying for a given individual.

[cassiepriam]

17. Yes, very good points, indeed many variables to consider

In other words the cardiac patient prayer study is very primitive. (Though I think they did have a {knowing} and {not knowing} group, so they did control for that I think. I have to wait until I can see the full study when it comes out on Tuesday.)

I had not even thought about the problems with the control group, which is the no treatment group. (In research you have a treatment group which is receiving the treatment in question, in this case prayer. And then a no treatment group, which is called the control group. It is very important that the control group have absolutely none of the treatment in question. Then at the end of the study you compare the two groups on the research variable you are studying, in this case clinical improvement. If there is no difference in the two groups, you come to the conclusion that the treatment makes no difference. Or if the treatment group is worse off than the control group, then you conclude that the treatment had an adverse effect, as was the case in this study.)

But how in the world can you ensure that no one at all is praying for the control group, or sending them light and love? I wonder if the researchers even gave those directions to the control group? You would have to give strict instructions to the patient, family and friends about no praying, no sending light and love. If we went back and asked the control group's family and friends if they had prayed or sent good thoughts to the ill person, and we found that they did, the results of the whole study would be invalidated. You would have a contaminated control group :( which is always a researchers nightmare. If I were the researcher on this study this would be giving me a big headache. You would have to be a prayer nazi and keep reminding the control group patient, family and friends to give no prayers to their loved one. I don't even want to think about the ethics of that. I am going to look at how the control groups are handled in prayer research.

And of course there is no way to add all the karmic variables, all the prayers in the world may not release an illness if there is a karmic lesson to be learned, or if it is time for a person to pass to the other side. If the prayer is for God's will to be done, then perhaps God's will is that the person experience an illness for karmic reasons, or that it is time for the person to end their human existence.

Also I can think of a personal example of how praying made my own symptoms worse, but that was OK. I had a chronic health problem that was very annoying but no one could seem to diagnose or treat it. I started praying very hard for a resolution to the problem, and to my surprise my symptoms became much worse quite quickly. I was not happy, but kept praying. In turned out that the fact the symptoms got worse worked in my favor as finally the lab results started showing what was wrong with me. I eventually got the right medical specialist and got better.

So I guess the bottom line is that studying the effects of prayer is a complicated issue. And we are at a very primitive stage in our understanding of it here in the Western world.

[Grateful for Hope]

22. I agree that we are in a primitive stage of our understanding

of prayer here in the West.

I don't think our current research methodologies can even begin to address the power that we have been given in respect to manifestation of outcome, etc.

My degree is in research methodology, measurement, and evaluation, and, I admit that there was a time that I thought that research would provide us with all the answers that we need.

Now, I believe that no paradigm can adequately address the wonder of the human being in it's totality.

[cassiepriam]

24. Yes I agree that it is difficult to measure spirituality and energy

from a western scientific standpoint. So many problems to address in terms of design. For example the gold standard of western research is double blind studies, that means that neither practitioner nor patient know what treatment is being delivered.

But the Eastern tradition states that a major part of the healing is that both patient and healer know and believe in the treatment. So Eastern practitioners say that by studying energy in a western way, we take away the energy, no wonder we get no significant results.

And even when there is some very good research being done, for example some of the university studies showing that psychic phenomena exists, the traditional community discounts it or tries to discredit the researchers.

The bias is very strong in the American medical/research community against CAM. I am personally aware that some gov't researchers have made it their mission in life to debunk all alternative treatments, one by one, with glee. I hardly think that is the proper scientific attitude.

I am not trying to prove or disprove anything, I am merely trying to discover the truth, whatever it may be, whether I like it or not.

[Grateful for Hope]

26. So true!

"But the Eastern tradition states that a major part of the healing is that both patient and healer know and believe in the treatment. So Eastern practitioners say that by studying energy in a western way, we take away the energy, no wonder we get no significant results."

Absolutely!!!

It's funny, but, for all the debunking of psychic phenomenon, it's interesting that criminal investigations sometimes (maybe often?) enlist the aid of a known psychic.

I have heard recent studies trying to demonstrate that vitamins can be harmful. I always get angry when I read or hear about them because I am sure that they are funded somewhere by drug companies, and, the medical profession itself is far more interested in keeping the population dependent upon it to "fix" problems that might have been prevented in the first place with proper nutrition and a sensible vitamin regimen.

[cassiepriam]

28. In all fairness, some herbals are dangerous

since it is a totally unregulated industry. For example some ginseng products don't even contain ginseng! And herbals imported from third world countries are showing very toxic levels of arsenic, DDT, and other poisons. The FDA does not get involved until someone dies.

And many Americans are getting too many vitamins into their systems, you can see some people with copperish spots on their skin from vitamin overdose.

But again, many herbals and vitamins are fine and helpful.
You just have to know what you are doing and make sure they
grown or manufactured in a safe way.

(And yes, I think that it may be fairly common in criminal investigations to use psychics, often informally and off record.)

[Grateful for Hope]

29. I wasn't denying that we need to be careful

But, as with most things, one needs to do their homework on herbals and vitamins.

[cassiepriam]

31. Yes we should do our homework on any treatment we are considering! nt

[MissWaverly]

33. I can think why prayer might harm

It might alarm people that they were being prayed for, and make them uncomfortable that those outside of their family were told about their condition, I know that celebrities have
been prayed for but they are used to admitting people to their inner circle. People have
the idea that prayer is only used as a last resort, i.e. the last rites so it might alarm
people about their condition.

If someone does not believe in God, they may feel they are being pressured to accept
somone else's beliefs which would upset them.

But I feel that for those people that are our family or friends welcome prayers from us
and see it as a gesture of caring.

I had a friend that died of cancer, I dreamed about him about a month later. I dreamed that
he was very much like he was when he was alive, weak and debilitated from his illness. I
saw him step into this area and suddenly he was hit by a shower of golden rain, but each
droplet sparkled as if it was lit from within. I believe that those were the prayers that
people had prayed for him, they were not lost or wasted, and he stepped out from this shower, he was healed and revitalized.

[NJCher]

20. as usual, journalists position study findings with finality

Here is an article of interest regarding this study. As Cassie says in her post above, if we have access to the American Heart Journal , we could actually view the study methodology on Tuesday.

Also, note this quote from the article: The study "did not move us forward or backward" in understanding the effects of prayer, Dr. Charles Bethea, a co-author and cardiologist, told the Associated Press.

I wonder if the reason he said that is the surprise at which this study's findings were met. There were 389 articles about this when I googled it. As everyone who understands the structure of scientific experimentation knows, one study does not a conclusion make. There would have to be many studies reproducing this conclusion for scientists to make a conclusion about whether prayer is effective or ineffective. The study's researchers certainly acknowledge that tenet but the media headlines most certainly do not.

Google it yourself off the main Google news page. Just about every headline says something to the effect that prayer is ineffective. I'm sure I'm not the only one to find fault with the press for this habit of theirs. Journalists should be made to attend a class in the scientific method because they do damage to the understanding of the American public with headlines like this.

Patient: Prayer is aid to recovery
Christians disagree with recent study on health benefits of prayer
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/14237446.htm




Cher

[cassiepriam]

30. Good, point NJCher, and this is very common with the press.

Seems like every year they make a sensationalized distorted reporting of a single study and the public overreacts to it.

Remember last year or so it was the estrogen scare for menopausal women? And women everywhere flushed their estrogen down the toilet! The OB-GYNS were furious because it was a very flawed study.

And of course the infamous Prozac study which found that people on Prozac committed suicide more often than people not on Prozac. Well the people on Prozac are clinically depressed and we know that they have higher suicide rates than the normal population. But we had lots of people going off Prozac overnight which sadly and ironically caused some suicides that were totally unnecessary.

And yes the whole issue of who is sponsoring the study is important. Studies paid for by the pharmaceutical industry are always suspect.

I am glad that the authors of the cardiac prayer study are speaking out. One of the other authors was quoted as saying that is was possible that the negative finding could have been due to a confounding variable, that is, the patients' anxiety level about being prayed for.

I think that traditional health care has much to offer, as does alternative health care. I think the public has the right to know the truth about the efficacy of all treatments so they can make informed choices.