six-month study conducted by the prestigious Mayo Clinic has found that prayer had no effect on rates of death, heart attacks, strokes and hospitalizations.

   The study was directed by cardiologist Dr. Stephen L. Kopecky, and was conducted between July, 1997 and October, 1999. Results were released in the current issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings. A statement from the Clinic said that researchers "found that... intercessory prayer had no significant effect on patients' medical outcomes after hospitalization in a coronary care unit."

   Kopecky's team followed 799 male and female patients aged 18 years or older. The survey was described as a "single-center, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial."

   "We sought to improve on the design of earlier studies of intercessory prayer through the application of standard experimental methods with the hope of obtaining scientific evidence to elucidate the potential role of intercessory prayer in medical care," said Kopecky.

   Patients were randomly placed into an "intercessory prayer group" and a control group. Those in the former cohort were prayed for at least once a week for 26 weeks by a prayer-team of five people. "No significant differences were found between the intercessory prayer group and the control group," noted the Mayo Clinic team.

   The findings add to a growing debate among religious leaders, scientists, health-care workers and even public policy makers about the role of spirituality in physical well being. Nearly 1,200 studies have attempted to examine the effects of prayer, and even Kopecky suggested that some forms of religious involvement and spirituality are linked to healthier lives. One possible explanation, though, suggests that benefits occur not because of the intervention of a cosmic deity exchanging medical outcomes for prayer, but rather the fact that when people pray, they are often relaxed and have lower blood pressure rates. Indeed, some have pointed to the benefits of laughter as a source of potential medical benefit.

   "Although the relationship between religious involvement and spirituality and health outcomes seems valid (in some studies)," said Dr. Paul S. Mueller of the Mayo Clinic, "it is difficult to establish causality. The benefits of religious and spiritual involvement are likely conveyed through complex psychosocial, behavioral and biological processes that are incompletely understood."

   For those who argue that intercessory prayer and other spiritual practices benefit health due to the intervention of supernatural beings, the Mayo Clinic study offers little sanctuary. "Researchers could discern no scientifically significant differences" between groups of patients who received prayer, and those who did not. Fully 25.6% in the prayer group even suffered "negative outcomes" such as death, heart attack, rehospitalization or a trip to the emergency room. More bedeviling, of course, are the deeper philosophical and theological questions the Mayo study, and even surveys suggesting a link between health and spirituality don't answer. Why would God or angels wait until someone is on his/her deathbed, or in a serious medical crisis, before intervening? Why might prayer be said to work for some, and not others?

   Equally puzzling is the comment of Rev. John Hatgidikas, "who teaches University of Minnesota medical students about spirituality" according to the AP story reporting the Mayo Clinic findings. He said that people who are unaware that they are being prayed for by others "may benefit in ways that we can't know or see."

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