Newsgroup: it.discussioni.misteri
Titolo: [NEWS] RELIGIOUS ATTENDANCE LINKED TO LOWER MORTALITY IN ELDERLY

Salve a tutti,
se puo' interessare...
Saluti scettici e agnostici,
Roberto
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/Med/KOETMT.htm
_____________________________________________
Duke University News Service
Box 90563
Durham, NC 27708-0563
Hold for release: 5 p.m. EDT, Thursday, July 22, 1999 
Contact: Rebecca Levine 
(919) 684-4148
levi...@mc.duke.edu
 
RELIGIOUS ATTENDANCE LINKED TO LOWER MORTALITY IN ELDERLY
DURHAM, N.C. - A study of nearly 4,000 elderly North Carolinians has
found that those who attended religious services every week were 46
percent less likely to die over a six-year period than people who
attended less often or not at all, according to researchers at Duke
University Medical Center.
After controlling for factors that could influence death rates - such
as medical illnesses, depression, social connections, health practices
and demographics - the frequent religious attenders were still 28
percent less likely to die than others in the study. The size of the
effect was so strong that it was equal to that of not smoking
cigarettes, Duke psychiatrist Dr. Harold Koenig said
Results of the study, funded by the National Institutes of Mental
Health, are published in the July/August issue of Journal of
Gerontology, medical sciences edition. Koenig, lead author of the
research report, said it is the fourth major study published in the
past two years documenting a relationship between religious attendance
and longer survival.
"Participating in religious services is associated with significant
health benefits in elderly people, even when you take into account the
fact that religious people tend to start out with better health
practices and more social support," Koenig said.
The current findings build on a series of earlier studies at Duke and
elsewhere showing that religious people have lower blood pressure,
less depression and anxiety, stronger immune systems and cost the
health care system less than people who are less religiously involved.
In the Duke study, researchers arrived at their conclusions by
analyzing data from a massive, 10-year research effort funded by the
National Institutes of Health. Called the Established Populations for
the Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (EPESE), the study cataloged
information on how older North Carolinians age - everything from
social practices to religious behavior to eating and exercise habits.
Of the 1,177 subjects who died during the 6-year study period, 22.9
percent were frequent church attenders compared to 37.4 percent who
were infrequent attenders.
While researchers can't explain the association between religious
behavior and health, they say there is evidence that religious
participation benefits people through a number of psychosocial,
biological and behavioral pathways.
First, frequent religious service attenders reported having larger
social networks and hence experienced greater social support than
infrequent attenders, Koenig said. High levels of social support have
been linked to better mental health, and they may also increase the
likelihood that illnesses will be detected by friends and family and
thus treated more rapidly, he said. Moreover, better mental health may
confer protection against a wide range of physical illnesses, from
heart disease to stroke, that have been linked to people with
depression.
"In dozens of studies, depression has been shown to increase the death
rate from all causes," Koenig said. "So it stands to reason that if
religious participation fosters better mental health, then death rates
would be lower among this population."
Second, the worship and adoration associated with religious rituals
may directly contribute to mental well-being by serving as coping
mechanisms for stressful events or physical illnesses later in life,
Koenig said. "Such positive feelings may counteract stress and convey
health effects, like enhanced immune function, that go far beyond the
prevention of depression or other negative emotions," he said.
Third, said Koenig, people who cope better with life's ups and downs
appear to be less inclined to drink, smoke and engage in other
destructive health habits. Even at baseline measurement in the current
study, religious elderly people were physically healthier and reported
leading healthier lifestyles than less frequent attenders.
But these factors were not sufficient to explain the relationship
between religious attendance and longer survival found in the current
study or others recently conducted around the nation, Koenig said.
In one of the largest studies to date on the subject, researchers at
the University of California at Berkeley, produced similar results in
a 28-year study of 5,000 people aged 21 to 65 years old. They found
that people who attended religious services at least once a week had a
23 percent lower risk of dying over the study period than less
frequent attenders, even after controlling for health, social and
demographic factors.
Future EPESE studies will attempt to identify the specific
psychosocial, behavioral and biological mechanisms by which religious
involvement could affect health and mortality.
###

RELIGIOUS ATTENDANCE LINKED TO LOWER MORTALITY
Prevedo innanzi a me una vecchiaia assai breve...
Davide
"From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were - I have not seen
As others saw - I could not bring
My passions from a common spring."
Edgar Allan Poe