Will PRAYERS help you lose weight or keep it off???

"Ignoramus13873" wrote in message
...
I highly doubt that prayers would help...

You would be better off eating less and exercising more!

i
223/176/180


Well, not while awaiting angioplasty. Most docs would like to have the
procedure completed first.

This study is dated last week but that was amazingly similar was published
several years ago with the same results. Go figure. Maybe just knowing
that others are investing in your outcome?

How will Merck market this? Get the doc to write a script for Hail Mary's
and take it to the local pharmacist to fill for a price?
================================================== ====
Power of prayer found wanting in hospital trial
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
(Filed: 15/10/2003)


The biggest scientific experiment on prayer has failed to find any
evidence that it helps to heal the sick.

Doctors in the United States will today disclose that heart patients
who were prayed for by groups of strangers recovered from surgery at
the same rate as those who were not.

The three-year study, led by cardiologists from Duke University
Medical Centre in North Carolina, involved 750 patients in nine
hospitals and 12 prayer groups around the world, from Christians in
Manchester to Buddhists in Nepal.

Earlier, less extensive, research suggested prayer could have a
measurably beneficial effect.

But the experiment, which will be detailed in a BBC2 Everyman
documentary to be broadcast next week, was criticised as crude by
Church leaders. The Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Tom Wright, said:
"Prayer is not a penny-in-the-slot machine. You can't just put in a
coin and get out a chocolate.

"This is like setting an exam for God to see if God will pass it or
not."

He said both the Old and New Testaments said "very clearly" that you
must not put God to the test. The new research, dubbed the Mantra
project, was led by Dr Mitch Krucoff, a cardiologist, whose pilot
studies had led him to believe that prayer could have measurably
beneficial effects.

Over three years, 750 patients awaiting angioplasty, a procedure to
clear obstructions from their arteries, were recruited for the
experiment.

Names selected at random by a computer were sent to the 12 prayer
groups, who began praying immediately for their recovery. Neither the
hospital staff nor the patients and their relatives knew who was being
prayed for.

The prayer groups included American Christian mothers, nuns in a
Carmelite convent in Baltimore, Sufi Muslims, Buddhist monks in Nepal
and English doctors and medical students in Manchester. Prayers were
even e-mailed to Jerusalem and placed in the Wailing Wall.

An analysis of the results found that there were no significant
differences in the recovery and health of the patients who were prayed
for and those who were not.

The Rev Leslie Francis, professor of practical theology at the
University of Wales, said two major studies, in 1988 and 1999, had
found that prayer had a beneficial effect.

"In medical research one expects divergent results, so it is premature
to affirm or dismiss the power of prayer in healing," he said. "But if
the pharmaceutical industry was getting these sorts of results they
would be investing a great of money in research."

"Ignoramus13873" wrote in message
...
In article l%Rkb.104303$k74.16400@lakeread05, Julianne wrote:

"Ignoramus13873" wrote in message
...
I highly doubt that prayers would help...

You would be better off eating less and exercising more!

i
223/176/180


Well, not while awaiting angioplasty. Most docs would like to have the
procedure completed first.

This study is dated last week but that was amazingly similar was
published
several years ago with the same results. Go figure. Maybe just knowing
that others are investing in your outcome?

Julianne, from your comment is appears as you you believe that the
study I cited found that prayers were beneficial. Exactly the opposite
is the case: it found prayers to be useless.

i
223/176/180


That's what you get for trying to read sans glasses on less than a cup of
coffe. Error noted.

j
================================================= =====
Power of prayer found wanting in hospital trial
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
(Filed: 15/10/2003)


The biggest scientific experiment on prayer has failed to find any
evidence that it helps to heal the sick.

Doctors in the United States will today disclose that heart patients
who were prayed for by groups of strangers recovered from surgery at
the same rate as those who were not.

The three-year study, led by cardiologists from Duke University
Medical Centre in North Carolina, involved 750 patients in nine
hospitals and 12 prayer groups around the world, from Christians in
Manchester to Buddhists in Nepal.

Earlier, less extensive, research suggested prayer could have a
measurably beneficial effect.

But the experiment, which will be detailed in a BBC2 Everyman
documentary to be broadcast next week, was criticised as crude by
Church leaders. The Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Tom Wright, said:
"Prayer is not a penny-in-the-slot machine. You can't just put in a
coin and get out a chocolate.

"This is like setting an exam for God to see if God will pass it or
not."

He said both the Old and New Testaments said "very clearly" that you
must not put God to the test. The new research, dubbed the Mantra
project, was led by Dr Mitch Krucoff, a cardiologist, whose pilot
studies had led him to believe that prayer could have measurably
beneficial effects.

Over three years, 750 patients awaiting angioplasty, a procedure to
clear obstructions from their arteries, were recruited for the
experiment.

Names selected at random by a computer were sent to the 12 prayer
groups, who began praying immediately for their recovery. Neither the
hospital staff nor the patients and their relatives knew who was being
prayed for.

The prayer groups included American Christian mothers, nuns in a
Carmelite convent in Baltimore, Sufi Muslims, Buddhist monks in Nepal
and English doctors and medical students in Manchester. Prayers were
even e-mailed to Jerusalem and placed in the Wailing Wall.

An analysis of the results found that there were no significant
differences in the recovery and health of the patients who were prayed
for and those who were not.

The Rev Leslie Francis, professor of practical theology at the
University of Wales, said two major studies, in 1988 and 1999, had
found that prayer had a beneficial effect.

"In medical research one expects divergent results, so it is premature
to affirm or dismiss the power of prayer in healing," he said. "But if
the pharmaceutical industry was getting these sorts of results they
would be investing a great of money in research."

"Ignoramus13873" wrote in message


Julianne, from your comment is appears as you you believe that the
study I cited found that prayers were beneficial. Exactly the opposite
is the case: it found prayers to be useless.

How do you know that those people wouldn't have died or had major
complications without the prayer?

In article ,
Ignoramus26947 wrote:

In article , Jeri wrote:
"Ignoramus13873" wrote in message


Julianne, from your comment is appears as you you believe that the
study I cited found that prayers were beneficial. Exactly the opposite
is the case: it found prayers to be useless.

How do you know that those people wouldn't have died or had major
complications without the prayer?



Re-read my original post. The entire article. You will see that those
prayed for people were compared to an unprayed-for control group. Both
groups did equally well.

i
223/176/180

That reminds me of Magrat, a youngish witch in the Discworld books, giving
up witching to go be Queen and throwing all her occult jewelery in the
lake. She thinks about how none of it ever seemed to work, and then she
fleetingly wonders if maybe the stuff just kept things from getting
_worse_.

Personally, I look at prayer as about equivalent with meditation. I'm an
atheist myself, so I look at both prayer and meditation as ways to focus
your own mental energy. If you change the terminology from "Praying to
lose weight" to "Visualizing your goal" it sounds more like a valid and
helpful thing to do, doesn't it? When in essence it's the same thing. And
who's to say the people in the control group did not meditate or visualize
their goals in moments of weakness? People pray for strength when
overcoming challenges in all aspects of life, and if it has what I would
call a placebo effect and makes them feel stronger, mo' power to 'em.

--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick
http://www.mindspring.com/~designbyluna

In article , Jeri
wrote:

"Ignoramus13873" wrote in message


Julianne, from your comment is appears as you you believe that the
study I cited found that prayers were beneficial. Exactly the opposite
is the case: it found prayers to be useless.

How do you know that those people wouldn't have died or had major
complications without the prayer?

I like the idea of prayer but would be inclined to put my money on diet
and exercise as good preventative medicine and medical specialists.

--
Diva
*****
The Best Man for the Job May Be A Woman

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 13:24:55 GMT, Luna
wrote:

I'm an
atheist myself,

Sorry to hear that.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031011.html
Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.

In article ,
M_un Over Seattle wrote:

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 13:24:55 GMT, Luna
wrote:

I'm an
atheist myself,

Sorry to hear that.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031011.html
Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.

Why are you sorry? If you're right in your beliefs, then that's just more
room in heaven for you, right?

--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick
http://www.mindspring.com/~designbyluna

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 13:49:45 GMT, Luna
wrote:

I'm an
atheist myself,

Sorry to hear that.

Why are you sorry? If you're right in your beliefs, then that's just more
room in heaven for you, right?

Heaven has room for as many as God created....with space to spare.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031011.html
Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.

In article , M_un Over
Seattle wrote:

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 13:49:45 GMT, Luna
wrote:

I'm an
atheist myself,

Sorry to hear that.

Why are you sorry? If you're right in your beliefs, then that's just more
room in heaven for you, right?

Heaven has room for as many as God created....with space to spare.

Which is important when one is overweight. Why can't the airlines be
more like heaven?

--
Diva
*****
The Best Man for the Job May Be A Woman

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 10:00:26 -0400, Carol Frilegh
wrote:

Heaven has room for as many as God created....with space to spare.

Which is important when one is overweight. Why can't the airlines be
more like heaven?

Heaven is a not for profit organization.

lol

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031011.html
Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.