Attendance at religious services prolongs life of women – US scientists

Harvard psychologists have found that regular attendance at religious services reduces the likelihood of premature death among women by 30% and prolongs life for 5 months. This was reported by RIA Novosti.

"Our results suggest that attendance at services gives people much more than individual spirituality. Their positive impact is likely to include increased support from others, reducing smoking and depression, as well as – a more optimistic view of life," said the researcher Tyler VanderWeele from Harvard University.

The scientist and his colleagues came to this conclusion as a result of observation of the physical and mental health of more than 70,000 women participating in the project on health monitoring among nurses (NHS) from 1992 to 2012. Women are asked not only about their way of life, but also whether they believe in God.

According to Tyler VanderWeele, in the last 20 years there has been published a number of studies in which the authors claimed that faith in God helped people better tolerate surgery or overcome any other health problems. Such studies are usually met with a storm of criticism and statements that the church is attended by initially healthy people.

The authors decided to use the data collected as part of the NHS, to verify whether the outcomes and conclusions of previous studies were true.

Their conclusions were as follows: women who weekly attended services in Orthodox churches and Protestant churches and the Catholic Mass, on average, were associated with 33% lower all-cause mortality compared with the women who have never attended religious services, and lived an average of 5 months longer. Besides, cardiovascular mortality among the believers was 27% and cancer mortality was 21% lower than among non-believers.

The researcher concludes that religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that physicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate.

According to Tyler VanderWeele, these conclusions are likely to be met with skepticism by the scientific community. Simultaneously with the studies of the scholar, the work by Dan Blazer from Duke University in Durham (USA) was published, in which the author criticized the research of an important role of the Church for human health.

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