Doctor's Startling Study Reveals . . .
Your Prayers DO HELP the Sick

By Paul P. Levy

    Praying for the sick really helps --- that's what a doctor found when he compared a group of patients who were prayed for with a group who weren't.

    Dr. Randy Byrd selected 393 heart patients at San Francisco
General Hospital --- all comparable in age and severity of illness.

    All  393 were told they were  part  of a study  in which  volunteers would pray for patients in one group, but not the other. None of the patients knew which group they belonged to.

    After 10 months, Dr. Byrd found that the 192 patients who were prayed for had suffered fewer complications in three important areas; Only three patients who received prayers needed antibiotics, compared to 16 in the other group.

    Only six of the prayed-for patients suffered pulmonary edema --- excess water in the lungs ---- compared to 18 in the other group.

    None of the prayed-for patients needed to have tubes placed in their throats to aid their breathing, while 12 in the other group
did.

    "Based on this study, I believe that prayer is effective and
beneficial," said Dr. Byrd, who presented his study at an American Heart Association meeting last year.

    "Volunteers were asked to pray each day for the beneficial
healing and quick recovery of patients," said Dr. Byrd, who was assistant professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco when the study was done in 1983.
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Yours in Christ,
Paul N. F.