Medicine or miracle?

Modern medicine can treat — and often conquer — disease. But we have yet to understand why some people overcome serious illness against all odds. Many doctors will tell you that they have encountered patients in their practice who have survived a terrible accident or a terminal illness — even if medical science said they didn’t stand a chance. And these patients are often convinced that it was their faith that healed them. Patrick Theiller, head of the Lourdes Medical Office in France, is charged with documenting the accounts of pilgrims who claim they have been cured at the site. "As a doctor, I cannot claim, ‘This cure is miraculous,’ " says Theiller. "(But) as a practicing Catholic, I can recognize that it is miraculous."

Dr. Kailash Nath Kanwar, a former head of research and development for the Indian office of a US pharmaceutical company, was deeply skeptical of the power of religion in the treatment of diseases. Suffering from severe low back pain and feeling no relief from traditional treatments, his wife persuaded him to visit a swami outside Bangalore. Kanwar spent nearly a month at an ashram with the guru Sai Baba, meditating and following a strict vegetarian diet. When he returned to New Delhi, his back pain disappeared. Now, he’s a true believer. Says Kanwar,"We know very little about spirituality. It’s beyond explanation, but it’s very potent."

Scientific Proof?

Doctors and scientists are traditionally skeptical of remedies that are untested or unproven.

Because it is scientifically impossible to prove that belief can heal, the next best way to understand the role of belief in health is to conduct studies that look for an association between the two. Such studies cannot prove a cause-and-effect relationship, but they can uncover apparent connections. And so, after decades of research at many leading institutions, such as the Harvard Medical School, experts have concluded that the mind plays a strong role in healing the body — and that belief can be a powerful medicine.

Over the past 15 years, there have been more than 1,500 research findings on the effects of religious involvement or spirituality (prayer or meditation), studying religious service attendance much in the way diet and drugs are studied. These studies have found that people who practice a faith have less heart disease, lower blood pressure, fewer strokes, less depression, faster recovery from illness — and they may even live longer.

"At least six studies have found a relationship between involvement in a religious community and longer survival. Religious beliefs and activities are associated with better mental and physical health in the vast majority of studies," reports Dr. Harold G. Koenig, founding director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Spirituality and Health at Duke University in North Carolina.

For example, he says, frequent church attendees were only half as likely as non-attendees to have high levels of interleukin-6 (a blood protein indicative of immune system dysfunction), suggesting that they have stronger immune systems. Researchers also find that spirituality or regular attendance at a church, synagogue, or mosque helps people better cope with life stresses, provides crucial social supports, promotes a healthier lifestyle, lowers anxiety, and encourages optimism. On the other hand, lack of religious involvement has negative effects on health; in one study by Dr. Koenig, those negative effects were equivalent to 40 years of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

Doctors, Religion, And Medicine

So, despite the technological advances and breakthroughs in medicine, religion is making a medical comeback. People are increasingly frustrated by what they perceive as impersonal aspects of modern health care that don’t take a holistic view of the patient. "We can’t ignore the research and the patients’ desire for healing to include both body and soul," says Dr. Pat Fosarelli, of Johns Hopkins Medical School. The problem is some doctors and other medical workers are not ready to deal with this "new" demand on their medical practice.

Dr. Susan Smith (not her real name), was a medical intern in Dallas when she came upon a man dying of cancer one Saturday afternoon, in the hospital where she worked. Hooked to an oxygen tank, the man, an Orthodox Jew, could barely breathe, let alone speak. There were no friends or relatives by his bed to comfort him. When she walked into his room, the man looked at her and said, "Now that I’m dying, I realize that I never really learned how to live." Dr. Smith, 27, had no idea how to respond. "I thought, my God, the chaplain doesn’t work on weekends, what do I do?" She held the man’s hand in silence for a few minutes; two days later, he died. And as soon as she could, she signed up for a special course on "Spirituality and Medicine" at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.

Dr. Dale Matthews, as a young internist, met a strong-willed middle-aged man who would change his life. Before allowing Matthews to treat him for heart disease, the man said, "I’m a devout Christian. If you’re going to be my doctor, I want you to pray for me." Matthews had never shared his own faith with patients. With some reluctance, he joined hands with the man. To Matthews’ alarm, the man’s booming voice filled the examination room. Matthews hoped no one would hear them, fearful that his superiors would judge him unscientific. But Matthews came to a vital insight that day: His patient was a whole person, not a composite of symptoms and tests forming a "case." Today, Matthews is an associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and is the author of The Faith Healer, a book on how faith can help people heal.

Faith And Health

Religion has a "package of benefits" that’s particularly powerful and "hard to replicate," says Dr. Koenig. "It’s the health behaviors and the lifestyle decisions and the social and psychological connections. Very few things have all these together." And the total package, he notes, "also involves the belief system that helps to solidify the lifestyle and behaviors."

For example, "religion helps people feel connected to each other — it goes beyond friendship," says Dr. Koenig. Consider that even the close friendships of an older person who’s chronically ill might dwindle over time, he explains. "The give and take of help socially isn’t as deep. But religion goes beyond give and take. (There’s an) intrinsic reward from God because of that commitment to help others in need." In other words, religion compels you to do the right thing. It’s the glue that motivates people to act out a sense of higher purpose, or a dedication to something bigger.

Indeed, prayer can be an enormous source of comfort to patients and their families. After suffering repeated heart attacks, Susan Silva (not her real name), was fighting for her life in the intensive care unit of a Rio de Janeiro hospital. Doctors had informed her family there was little they could do. But Silva, a devout Protestant evangelical, found strength contemplating the scruffy hill outside her window. "I always thought of Psalm 21," she says. "‘I will lift up mine eyes into the hills, from whence cometh my help.’" Two months later, she was released from the hospital; before long she was singing in the church choir again. "When you have faith, hope follows," she says. "If I hadn’t had faith, I’d probably be bedridden or dead by now." So, was that due to medical science or was it a miracle?

Faith Heals

Dr. Iris Keys, an internist at Baltimore’s Coppin College Nursing Center, is an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Although Keys never imposes her religion, she always listens for "church talk" from her patients, many of them older black women with dangerously high blood pressure. Over the years, she has learned that her religious patients are much more likely to follow strict medication, diet, and exercise regimens if Dr. Keys combines medical science with comforting prayer.

Not long ago, Keys treated a 54-year-old heart attack victim. Although the patient knew she must exercise to strengthen her cardiovascular system, she was terrified the exertion would trigger another attack. Tests revealed no evidence of a new coronary heart disease, but with her hectic workdays and anxiety-filled sleepless nights, she was under relentless assault from stress hormones. Keys sensed the woman was sicker in spirit than in body. "Shall we have a word of prayer?" Keys asked. They joined hands, bowed their heads, and prayed, "Lord," Keys concluded, "we know you’re in the healing business, so we ask that you lift our sister’s heavy burden." Over the following weeks, they began each examination with a brief prayer. Today, the patient is largely free of symptoms and on the road to recovery.

Was this a miracle or simply astute psychological management of the patient? To Keys, that’s a moot point. "Human life is one of the Lord’s miracles," she says. "And God heals through doctors."

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Erratum: In my article published last March 27, one sentence should have read as follows: "It also fuels the growing realization that dropping LDL, or bad, cholesterol to levels far below the 100 milligrams (not 10 milligrams, as printed) per deciliter that’s considered optimal is the best way to prevent heart attacks."