Skip the Health Club; Just Head to Church

Gerald L. Zelizer

Religion competes on weekends with sports, entertainment, and the mall. Judging by numbers alone, these leisure time activities may have been getting the better of us. But a solution may have arrived from an unexpected source to level the playing field.

Apparently, the more one prays, the healthier he or she will be. Two recent independent university studies correlate greater attendance at religious services with increased physical health and longevity. Practitioners of all religions have been provided with the greatest marketing tool this side of promising eternal life.

The first study, released in October by the Duke University Medical Center and involving more than 1,700 adults over 65 in North Carolina, found that those who attended church at least once a week were much less likely to have high levels of interleukin-6, an immmune-system protein associated with age-related diseases. It found that the elderly who attend services regularly are less likely to have some cancers, auto-immune disorders and certain viral diseases. Also, they have less difficulty with tasks like walking, dressing and cooking.

The second study, in November, co-authored by researchers at Yale and Rutgers and conducted over a 12-year period among 2,912 senior citizens, found that monthly attendance at services among New Haven’s elderly meant more robust mental health. They avoid bad habits like smoking and drinking. Even the chronically ill have “increased feelings of optimism…and fewer symptoms of depression” than those not monthly attendees.

Although the statistics correlating more prayer with longer life are clear, the reasons for the connection are less so. Did healthier people attend services more often? No, researchers said many participants in both studies, in fact, had severe disabilities.

A different cause was suggested by Dr. Harold Koenig, author of the Duke study. The immune function may be enhanced because of “feelings of togetherness, even perhaps the experience of worship and adoration.” Scholars have long pointed out the significant social ties increase one’s ability to ward off the society’s evil spirits. But in the Rutgers study, “There was evidence that attendance at religious services had a positive impact on health even after other variables such as friendship, leisure activities and social support were removed.”

Perhaps the correlation is not sociological or psychological, but theological. Throughout the Bible, God promises “length of days” to those who faithfully adhere to the religious life. Job railed that matters did not always work out that neatly, so the rabbis in Roman times reworded the equation. They explained that the promised longer life was not in this world but in the next. Both Mohammed and Jesus filled in the details, each in his own way.

Ironically, though, the scientific survey by these researchers, and not the sacred texts, may have stumbled upon the more accurate religious explanation.

God’s assurance in the Old Testament is not to be construed figuratively but literally, not in some future time but now. Apparently, the more we pray, the healthier we are. The more we sit, kneel and prostrate ourselves in church, synagogue or mosque, the more robust days we have to look forward to in this world.

As I was walking to religious services recently, a car stopped to ask me directions. “Where is…” Hearing the New York inflection and seeing the Star of David worn prominently, I expected the remainder of the question to be”…the synagogue?” what I heard was, “Where is Jack LaLanne?” When I didn’t know the answer, the car sped off.

Now I’d have a more helpful response. “I don’t know where Jack LaLanne is, but if you come into my place now I may be able to give you better results with less strain and soreness.