Going to church is as good for the body as it is for the soul, according to new research which suggests that regular attendance at the church of your choice makes you healthier and may even make you live longer.
The spiritual benefits of church-going have been promoted by all denominations for centuries. Now they can also promise that your immune system will work better, following research carried out by Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina and published yesterday in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine.
"It doesn't make a difference whether you are a Catholic or a Protestant or what denomination of Protestant you are to have this effect," explained Dr Harold G. Koenig, who conducted the research with colleagues at Duke. Their work arises from an ongoing study of 4,000 randomly selected elderly people living in North Carolina. The work began in 1986, and 1,727 of the original study group are still alive. The researchers found an association between religious observance and having a stronger, more effective immune system. They measured blood samples taken from the study group for nine substances that indicated immune system activity.
About 60 per cent of the sample attended religious services at least once a week, and those that did were half as likely to show signs of diseases, injuries and infections. The effect was unrelated to either depression or negative life events, nor was it linked to only the healthiest subjects being able to get to church in the first place, Dr Koenig said.
The benefits, he believed, seemed to come down to the link between religious faith promoting better mental health, and this in turn leading to better physical health.
"Church attendance is not a good measure of spirituality," he suggested, but it was a good measure of involvement in a community. The health benefit seemed to be strongest when the community was linked by religion.
Believers can expect more good news. "We are now looking at survival, the time to death of the original cohort," Dr Koenig said.
His own work is not yet ready for publication, but he cites an earlier 28-year study of 5,000 people in California, including people of all ages. This work suggested that people were more likely to live longer, have less divorce, live in a stable family environment and have fewer drink problems if they went to church.
Better still, the effect seemed to last over time, even if church attendance had ended.
