[escepticos] religion y curacion

["pamplonetario" <planetario@...>]

Interesante noticia...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/print/2002/03/020314080021.htm

Evidence Behind Claim Of Religion-Health Link Is Shaky, Researchers Say
Popular claims that religious activity provides health benefits have
virtually no grounding in the medical literature, according to an article in
the March issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
This conclusion sharply contradicts assertions that a large body of evidence
indicates that religious people enjoy better physical and mental health.

Belief in the health benefits of religious and spiritual activities is so
widespread that many think these activities should be incorporated into
clinical practice.

?Nearly 30 U.S. medical schools now include courses on religion,
spirituality and health for medical students,? notes lead author Richard P.
Sloan, Ph.D., professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University. ?One
Denver-based HMO offers spiritual counseling,? he adds.

Sloan and his colleague, Emilia Bagiella, Ph.D., assistant professor of
clinical public health at Columbia University?s Mailman School of Public
Health, analyzed the medical literature to determine if, indeed, religion
provides a health benefit.

Sloan and Bagiella first tested the claim that hundreds of articles address
the possible impact of religion on health. They evaluated every article
listed in a medical database that was written in English, published in the
year 2000 and responsive to the search term ?religion.?

The authors found that 83 percent of the 266 articles that they found were
?irrelevant to claims of a health advantage associated with religious
involvement,? Sloan reports, because these studies, while about religion,
had nothing to do with an effect of religion on health.

For example, he notes, some studies examined only the association between
health and the lifestyle practices -- not the beliefs -- of certain
denominations, such as the dietary habits of Seventh-Day Adventists. Other
studies examined how health problems influence religious practices, not vice
versa.

Sloan and Bagiella then examined two previous reviews of the literature,
both citing broad support for the religion-health link. The authors
scrutinized only those studies investigating religion?s impact on
cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure.

Again, the authors found that little of the evidence claimed to link
religious practice to better health withstands close scrutiny. ?About half
of the articles cited in [these] reviews ...were irrelevant,? Sloan reports.

?Of those that actually were relevant, many ? had significant methodological
flaws,? he adds. Others were cited as evidence that that religion benefits
health when, in fact, their findings were inconclusive.

Overall, Sloan concludes, ?There is little empirical support for claims of
health benefits deriving from religious involvement. To suggest otherwise is
inconsistent with the literature.?





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