Remember that popular war-time phrase? "There are no atheists in foxholes." And what song was the orchestra playing on the sinking deck of the Titanic ... "Nearer My God to Thee". Yep, they were about as near as you can get. So, it comes as no surprise that when the going gets tough, people turn to a higher power, the power of prayer.

Nevertheless, the debate between faith in science and faith in God has been going on for centuries. Recently, though, the gap between science and spirituality has narrowed. Not that one will ever replace the other, but it seems that the power of medicine and the power of prayer are being welded into a powerful force for healing. Will the operating rooms of the future echo the voices of surgeons singing "Praise the Lord, and Pass the Anesthesia"? Could be. Take a look at what medical science is discovering about the healing power of prayer.

Steven Lamm, MD, writes in the March issue of New Choices magazine that researchers "recruited a cross-denominational team of Christians to pray for half the patients admitted to the coronary care unit at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri." The internist cited astonishing recoveries from illness generated by the prayers and positive expectations of the patient's friends and family.

In the Kansas City study, Dr. Lamm reported that "The chaplain's secretary randomly assigned all new patients to one of two groups: those who would be prayed for and those who received the usual care." Lamm says that "Over a 12-month period, the patients who were prayed for (and who, again, were unaware of the prayers) fared better than those who had no prayers said for them."

Dr. Lamm also cites a study by Texas orthopedic surgeon J. Bruce Moseley, Jr., M.D. In that study, says Lamm, "Five people received arthroscopic surgery (an operation performed through a very small incision), while five others underwent sham surgery consisting of three shallow nicks that made it seem that they actually had the operation." "Two years later, those who'd had the sham surgery reported the same amount of relief from pain and swelling as those who had had the real operation. Even more astonishing, four of the people in the placebo group recommended the surgery to friends, and another requested that the operation be repeated on the other knee."

In 1988, notes Lamm, one of the "most astonishing studies" in the power of prayer was conducted in the coronary care unit of San Francisco General Hospital. Randolph Byrd, M.D., asked volunteers to offer a daily prayer for 192 critically ill men and women, without their knowledge. Although these patients were unaware of the prayers, Lamm reports in his New Choices magazine column, that they had fewer cases of congestive heart failure, heart attacks, and pneumonia, and less need for antibiotics when compared with 200 other patients in the unit."

AgeVenture News (AVN) encourages continued research into the power of prayer as it relates to health and wellness. Perhaps additional studies will include other faiths in order to generalize the beneficial affects of all types and denominations of prayer. Such an approach appears to make sense, because even though faith practices differ widely, the belief in one recipient of prayer, one God, is fairly universal. At any rate, this is an area of medical research that shows great promise. It is an area of knowledge that needs to grow. Let's pray that it does.

AgeVenture News Service
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