[00:07.39]Researchers in the United States have shown that prayer
[00:14.32]may help speed the recovery of people with heart problems.
[00:19.96]The researchers found that heart patients did better
[00:25.31]when someone was praying for them.
[00:28.87]They say the patients who were the subjects of prayer
[00:35.00]generally needed less medicine and recovered more quickly.
[00:41.43]The findings were reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
[00:47.46]The study was supervised by researchers at the Mid-America Herat Institute
[00:55.30]at Saint Luke's Hospital in Kansas City,Missouri.
[01:00.55]It involved almost 1,000 people who were admitted to the hospital
[01:08.10]for serious heart problems.
[01:11.26]All of the patients in the study received the usual medical care.
[01:18.92]The researchers secretly divided the patients into two groups.
[01:26.26]Members of prayer groups prayed every day for four weeks
[01:33.02]for the recovery of some of the patients.
[01:37.25]The prayer groups were told nothing about the patients
[01:42.40]they were praying for other than their first names and that they were sick.
[01:49.84]No one was asked to pray for the other patients.
[01:54.29]None of the patients or their doctors
[01:59.64]knew about the study or that people were praying for some of the patients.
[02:06.07]Heart researcher William Harris helped organize the study.
[02:12.31]He identified thirty-five different ways
[02:17.95]to measure the condition of the patients.
[02:21.98]Mister Harris says the patients who were prayed for
[02:27.91]had about 10% fewer problems than the other patients.
[02:34.33]The researchers say their findings suggest that prayer
[02:40.65]might be an effective addition to traditional medical care.
[02:46.19]This was not the first study to reach such findings.
[02:52.43]A study crried out at San Francisco General Hospital in California
[02:58.96]in 1988 had similar results.
[03:03.88]However,Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School in Cambridge
[03:10.80]Massachusetts criticized the two studies.
[03:15.53]Doctor Benson said the two studies used questionable methods.
[03:22.87]He said other studies have found no improvement
[03:28.90]in patients as a result of prayer.
[03:32.74]Harold Koenig of the Duke University School of Medicine
[03:39.51]has supervised several studies on the effect of spiritual beliefs on health.
[03:46.72]He said the findings of the new study are very important.
[03:52.86]However,he admitted that the findings will be questioned.
[03:58.68]Doctor Koenig said he is not sure how many doctors
[04:04.43]will accept the importance of prayer. |