Published in the March-April issue of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, the study also found that regular attendance at religious services resulted in the same improvements in life expectancy as the use of statin-type medications - medicines used to reduce cholesterol, reports Medical News Today.
The study was undertaken by Daniel Hall, M.D., a resident in general surgery at UPMC and an Episcopal priest, in order to assess the extent to which regular religious attendance prolonged life in comparison to activities already known to extend life, including exercise and the proven therapeutic regimen, statin therapy.
In the study, the impact of regular exercise, statin therapy and religious service attendance was cross-compared using life expectancy tables.
It found that each category accounted for an additional two to five years of life, implying that the practical benefit of attending religious service was almost as significant as that gained by physical exercise and the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs.
While regular physical exercise remains the most notable factor in prolonging life – accounting for an additional 3.0 to 5.1 years of additional life over a lifetime, both statins and religious attendance followed not too far behind.Statins were found to account for an additional 2.1 to 3.7 years of life, while individuals who attended religious service regularly could gain anywhere in between 1.8 to 3.1 additional years of life.
"This is not to say that religious attendance should replace primary prevention such as exercise, or a proven drug therapy, such as statin therapy, but it does suggest that regular religious attendance is associated with a substantially longer life expectancy, and this warrants further research," said Dr Hall.
The findings also indicated that religious attendance was a much more cost-effective method, costing on average US$7,000, than the lifetime monetary cost of using statins which amounted to about US$10,000. Physical exercise remained the most cost effective at approximately US$4,000 for each additional year of life gained.
"Religious attendance is not a mode of medical therapy. While this study was not intended for use in clinical decision making, these findings tell us that there is something to examine further," said Dr. Hall. "The significance of this finding may prove to be controversial, but at the very least, it shows that further research into the associations between religion and health might have implications for medical practice."
"Unlike other health behaviours, such as exercise, there are practical and ethical problems with recommending "therapeutic" changes in religious behaviour, and there is no evidence that changing religious attendance causes a change in health outcomes. However, these findings contribute to the growing body of scientific literature examining the associations between religious attendance and health," he said.
