| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"Sound of Trumpet" |
| Date: |
20 May 2006 07:36:10 AM |
| Object: |
Go To Church And Live Longer |
http://www.hyscience.com/archives/2006/05/go_to_church_an.php
May 18, 2006
Go To Church And Live Longer?
Topics: Health Issues
A study of more than five thousand African Americans found that
individuals who were involved with or participated in religious
activities had significantly lower blood pressure than those who were
not, despite being more likely to be classified as hypertensive, having
higher levels of body mass index (BMI), and lower levels of medication
adherence:
The findings, presented today in New York City at the 21st Annual
Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension (ASH 2006),
are from the Jackson Heart Study, the largest exclusively African
American study sample ever used to ascertain associations among
religion, spirituality and blood pressure.
Female gender, lower socioeconomic status, increasing age, and lower
levels of cortisol were associated with more religious activities.
Higher levels of religious participation were related to higher levels
of body mass index (BMI) and lower levels of medication adherence.
Contrary to the original hypotheses, those with more religious
activities and participation were more likely to be classified as
hypertensive. However, those with more religious activities had
significantly lower diastolic blood pressure in an uncontrolled model,
and significantly lower systolic blood pressure in a controlled model.
Read more...
While interesting, this isn't exactly "new" news - a study by Duke
University researchers way back in 1998 found that "older people" with
an active faith have lower blood pressure:
The study of 4,000 North Carolinians ages 65 or over found that those
who regularly participated in religious activities were 40 percent less
likely to have high blood pressure. Dr. Harold Koenig, the study
co-author, said it provides more evidence that religious activity does
have a physiological benefit. Other studies have shown that religious
people are less depressed, have healthier immune systems, and deal
better with addictions. "We're becoming more aware that religious
beliefs or practices is not negative for a person's health," Koenig
said. "In fact they could be very positive."
According to an article in WebMD, a growing body of research is
beginning to define the complex connections between religious and
spiritual beliefs and practices and an individual's physical and
psychological health. No one says it's as simple as going to services
or "finding religion" later in life. It may be that people who are more
involved in religious activities or are personally more spiritual are
doing something that makes them feel better emotionally and helps them
live longer and more healthily:
Among the most recent findings in this area: People who attend
religious services at least once a week are less likely to die in a
given period of time than people who attend services less often. These
results -- published in the August 1999 issue of the Journal of
Gerontology: Medical Sciences -- came out of a study examining almost
4,000 North Carolina residents aged 64 to 101.
People who attended religious services at least once a week were 46
percent less likely to die during the six-year study, says lead author
Harold G. Koenig, M.D., of Duke University Medical Center in Durham,
North Carolina. "When we controlled for such things as age, race, how
sick they were and other health and social factors, there was still a
28 percent reduction in mortality," he says.
Koenig, a psychiatrist, says that the regular churchgoers showed a
reduction in their mortality rate comparable to that of people who
don't smoke over those who do.
As to a "why" or "how" of all this, maybe that doesn't matter so much
as the benefit religion and spirituality provide us. For now, perhaps
we should be a little more religious and spiritual, and enjoy the
benefit of living longer without worrying so much as to the how or why
it works. For now, maybe we can find it in ourselves to give a little
credit to the creator of us all.
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| User: "Doc Smartass" |
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| Title: Re: Go To Church And Live Longer |
20 May 2006 07:59:19 PM |
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"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@hoshmail.com> wrote in
news:1148128570.487649.261390@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
Subject: Go To Church And Live Longer
No. It just feels longer because you're bored out of your mind.
--
Doc Smartass
"I am George W. Fudd, Miwwionaire. I own a mansion, a yacht, and your phone
number."
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| User: "Dichard Rawkins" |
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| Title: Re: Go To Church And Live Longer |
20 May 2006 07:24:50 PM |
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"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@hoshmail.com> wrote in message
news:1148128570.487649.261390@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Contrary to the original hypotheses, those with more religious
activities and participation were more likely to be classified as
hypertensive.
Which means that they had HIGH blood pressure.
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| User: "Dichard Rawkins" |
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| Title: Re: Go To Church And Live Longer |
20 May 2006 07:39:41 PM |
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"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@hoshmail.com> wrote in message
news:1148128570.487649.261390@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
http://www.hyscience.com/archives/2006/05/go_to_church_an.php
As to a "why" or "how" of all this, maybe that doesn't matter so much
as the benefit religion and spirituality provide us. For now, perhaps
we should be a little more religious and spiritual, and enjoy the
benefit of living longer without worrying so much as to the how or why
it works. For now, maybe we can find it in ourselves to give a little
credit to the creator of us all.
Nobody who understands the true nature of statistics and scientific
studies would ever jump to such an unwarranted conclusion. There is no
evidence that spirituality leads to longer life or health benefits at all.
All studies of this type can show is a correlation between two variables,
not cause and effect. There are plenty of possible explanations for such a
correlation besides the one that religionists want us all to leap to. For
example, it is possible that the causation actually goes the other way.
Many people lose their religion when faced with a tragedy or a highly
stressful situation of the type that is likely to shorten one's life. In
addition, those with dangerous addictions, or risky behaviors like
promiscuous sex are less likely to spend time with the kind of judgemental
condecending people one tends to find in church services. That will lower
the apparent average lifespan recorded for those that do not attend church
regularly relative to those that do.
Besides, Christians that think scientific and statistical studies are
evidence that spirituality is not just a bunch of hogwash are strangely
silent on the studies that show that prayer has no effects on it's subjects.
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| User: "Malcolm" |
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| Title: Re: Go To Church And Live Longer |
21 May 2006 03:23:44 AM |
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"Dichard Rawkins" <God?JustSayNo@large.com> wrote
"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@hoshmail.com> wrote
As to a "why" or "how" of all this, maybe that doesn't matter so much
as the benefit religion and spirituality provide us. For now, perhaps
we should be a little more religious and spiritual, and enjoy the
benefit of living longer without worrying so much as to the how or why
it works. For now, maybe we can find it in ourselves to give a little
credit to the creator of us all.
Nobody who understands the true nature of statistics and scientific
studies would ever jump to such an unwarranted conclusion. There is no
evidence that spirituality leads to longer life or health benefits at all.
All studies of this type can show is a correlation between two variables,
not cause and effect. There are plenty of possible explanations for such a
correlation besides the one that religionists want us all to leap to. For
example, it is possible that the causation actually goes the other way.
Many people lose their religion when faced with a tragedy or a highly
stressful situation of the type that is likely to shorten one's life. In
addition, those with dangerous addictions, or risky behaviors like
promiscuous sex are less likely to spend time with the kind of judgemental
condecending people one tends to find in church services. That will lower
the apparent average lifespan recorded for those that do not attend church
regularly relative to those that do.
Besides, Christians that think scientific and statistical studies are
evidence that spirituality is not just a bunch of hogwash are strangely
silent on the studies that show that prayer has no effects on it's
subjects.
That is substantially right. When you say "there is no evidence that
spirituality
leads to a longer life" you are making the common mistke of confusing
evidence with proof. The fact that there is a correlation is strong
evidence, but it isn't proof, because in human populations there are alwys
many confounding factors which are impossible to control for. It may be that
ill people are more likely to drop out of worship. If you say that
Christians are less likely to indulge in risky behaviours like drug-taking
and promiscuous sex, maybe you have found the mechanism.
The prayer studies do show that God didn't answer the prayers, on that
particulalar occasion, of a study designed to show whether prayer was
effective or not, and administered by sceptics. The question is whether the
conclusions generalise to other prayers.
--
Buy my book 12 Common Atheist Arguments (refuted)
$1.25 download or $7.20 paper, available www.lulu.com/bgy1mm
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| User: "quibbler" |
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| Title: Re: Nope, it just seems longer because of the suffering |
20 May 2006 08:24:24 PM |
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In article <1148128570.487649.261390@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
soundoftrumpet@hoshmail.com says...
http://www.hyscience.com/archives/2006/05/go_to_church_an.php
May 18, 2006
Go To Church And Live Longer?
No, it just seems longer because you have to suffer by dragging your
fat ***** out of bed to sit through a boring sermon, while we non-religious
types get to sleep in and get laid on a lazy sunday morning.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
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| User: "Barry OGrady" |
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| Title: Re: Go To Church And Live Longer |
20 May 2006 05:50:53 PM |
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It only seems like you live longer because church is so boring.
Barry
=====
Home page
http://members.iinet.net.au/~barry.og
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