Can Prayer Benefit Health? Studies Are Mixed

What is prayer? For some people a person who prays is speaking to his or her self. For others, it is a means of speaking to a higher power. This author underwent cancer three times by age 33. Hearing the words, "I am praying for you" became second nature by the second diagnosis seventeen years ago. At that time my only thought was, "thank you." My thought now is those prayers helped to save my life and allow me to conceive and carry two children eighteen months apart in spite of ovarian cancer.

The problem with asking God for healing and medical science is the answer is not always for the sick person to get better. My mother is in month three of a stage four colon cancer diagnosis. It is obvious we are losing her even as the entire family is on their knees every night praying for her to improve. People who undergo similar things to my mom often become bitter because they are not healed in the sense that we see. Prior to my mom's diagnosis, she admittedly slipped away from living her life from what she saw as the right way. Her relationship with God has been restored so in that sense she is healed.

All around us miracles happen. Babies are conceived and born. People survive accidents in which they should have perished. People are healed from illnesses they should not have been healed from according to physician logic. What does medical science show about the effect of asking God for healing in such cases?

Before beginning, it is important to remember medical science and religion are often at odds with each other. What Christians or other faiths that believe in a higher power see as someone improving is often seen as sheer willpower by those in the medical field. They see it as willpower or circumstance-rarely God. Without going into a sermon, there seem to be two types of people. One type of person believes in human power being all there is while the other believes someone greater is behind what happens.

The beautiful part of faith in God is knowing that even when we are not yet on right terms with him, he is there. After my ovarian cancer recurrence at age fifteen, St. Jude hospital held something called a tumor board to decide what treatment should be undertaken. The room was split almost in half but in the end radiation did not win as a part of my treatment. If radiation had won, I would have never been able to conceive a child. My dad was present in the room and often speaks of how closely he never had a granddaughter (my daughter is his only granddaughter). Tumor board with my case was held in 1992. In 2003, I decided I wanted nothing more than a child.

I was in college but it did not matter. I wanted to be a mother and see what my genes and my husband's would look like together. I asked God for a child for almost a year. Senior year in college as a psychology major is difficult because it is typically when the deeply science oriented classes are taken. My faith wavered and I began to believe there was no God. I asked for a sign-anything I would be unable to question and learned my son was on the way three and one half weeks later. Regardless of what anyone says, I know I had my sign.

My experience may not be as dramatic as most but it certainly was for me.

What does medical science say about prayer, actually?

Larry Doss, author of Prayer and Medical Science mentions several cases of physician belief (or disbelief) in prayer playing a role in patients' health improving. One statement is the following, "Several respondents implied that the attempt to study the remote effects of prayer is wrong in principle. This is because, according to Dr Sandweiss,3 science deals with facts, not "miracles"." Does science simply deal with facts? If so, why do some people improve while others do not? Wouldn't a fact be the same no matter what the situation?

Doss continues in this article to state "39% of biologists, physicists, and mathematicians said they not only believed in God, but in a god who answers prayers." His article tends to skirt the line between those who believe in prayer as fantasy and those who believe in it as a genuine, true occurrence.

An excellent article written by Dr. Bruce Prescott entitled "Science and prayer and healing" touches on how prayer for the sick is an important activity regardless of the end effect. He has seen many people healed who were not believed to have a chance of improvement. Medical science and faith/speaking to God are often at odds with each other in believing the cause of one's improvement in such cases.

Can scientific study even be applied to prayer? According to Science Daily the methods used to study if prayer heals people who are sick are often flawed. In all science, bias exists and has to be recognized when interpreting the results of any scientific study, psychological or otherwise. While there may be some truth to the study of prayer being flawed it does not affect the result of the actual prayer. Clearly, prayer has an effect many times on helping sick people improve. Other times prayer has little effect that we see. Regardless of if we see the effect of prayer or not, should it be discontinued? The answer is absolutely not. Speaking to God may be fantasy to some people but to others it is a lifeline. Whether the true effect is a higher power helping in healing, someone's optimism, or even scientific advances it does no harm in believing a sick person can be healed and participating in any means necessary to help that healing.

http://www.mercola.com/article/prayer/dossey.htm

http://www.mainstreambaptists.org/mob/prayer_&_healing.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090617154401.htm