Have Faith Live Longer

This is a story in which science proves that having faith in something or someone actually helps, as a new study found that religiosity actually prolongs life span, after a liver transplant.

Italian researchers concluded that liver transplant candidates who have a strong faith, regardless of the religion, also have better post-transplant survival.

The research also discovered that regardless of the cause of death, religiosity extends the life span of patients having underwent liver transplantation.

Most doctors focus on rehabilitating a patient's health, and do not give much importance to the spiritual side of the patient's condition.

Even though most medical professionals have no interest in religion, the authors of the study stressed that 90% of the world's population is involved in some kind of religion or spiritual quest.

Previous studies have already concluded that religious people cope better with diseases and religiosity might actually have an influence on the evolution of a disease.

At the study took part 179 patients having received a liver transplant between January 2004 and December 2007, and completed a religiosity questionnaire.

The 129 males and 50 females had an average age of 52 years old and were followed for 21 months after transplant.

The causes of these liver transplants included viral hepatitis (68%), alcoholic liver disease (17%), and autoimmune hepatitis (7%).

The authors concluded that the Search for God factor (hazard ratio = 2.95) and the length of stay in the intensive care unit (1.05) were independently associated with survival.

Also, it was the personal relationship between the patient and God, regardless of religion (Christian, Muslim or other) that stimulated the survival.

Franco Bonaguidi, D.Psych., and lead author of the study, explains that the “study tested the hypothesis that religiosity—seeking God's help, having faith in God, trusting in God, trying to discern God's will even in the disease—improves survival of patients with end-stage liver disease who underwent liver transplantation.”

“We found that an active search for God—the patient's faith in a higher power rather than a generic destiny—had a positive impact on patient survival,” Dr. Bonaguidi concluded.

The authors add that the study focused on extremely sick patients, so the conclusions might not have a general application.

The results are available online and in the October issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).