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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
[...] A new nationwide study of obituaries has found that people with religious affiliations lived nearly four years longer than those with no ties to religion.
That four-year boost -- found in an analysis of more than 1,000 obits from around the country -- was calculated after taking into account the sex and marital status of those who died, two factors that have strong effects on lifespan.
[...] "We found that volunteerism and involvement in social organizations only accounted for a little less than one year of the longevity boost that religious affiliation provided," Wallace said. "There's still a lot of the benefit of religious affiliation that this can't explain."
So what else explains how religion helps people live longer? It may be related to the rules and norms of many religions that restrict unhealthy practices such as alcohol and drug use and having sex with many partners, Way said.
In addition, "many religions promote stress-reducing practices that may improve health, such as gratitude, prayer or meditation," he said.
[...] Way said there are limitations to the study, including the fact that it could not control for important factors related to longevity such as race and health behaviors. But a potential strength was that, unlike other studies, religious affiliation was not self-reported, but was reported by the obituary writer.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1) by exaeta on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:38PM (1 child)
I suspect it's mostly due to beng less likely to abuse alcohol given how harmful it is.
I wonder if the study would show the same result if they controlled for alcohol and illegal drugs. A lot of people don't realise it, but ethanol (ethyl alcohol, also known as drinking alcohol) is a potent drug. It's affects are numerous and varied, but it depresses the central nervous system, causes brain damage (especially at high doses), causes liver damage, and can be used for legitimate medical treatment such as treatment of methanol poisoning because it interferes with methanol metabolism (methanol itself is only mildly directly toxic, it's mainly a protoxin which is metabolised by the liver to become far more toxic substances, (although it's still a CNS depressant even without this protoxic effect), which is why ethyl alcohol is ussd as an antidote as it competes with methyl alcohol for metabolization by the liver). I think that if people were more educated about ethanol's effects they would be less likely to consume it for recreational purposes. It causes a lot of damage. Most people bought into the misleading truth that wine reduces the risk of heart problems (while true, non-alcoholic red grape juice provides the same benefit without the risks of ethanol).
IANAD - I am not a doctor.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 1) by exaeta on Tuesday June 19 2018, @04:00PM
*effects
I apologize for any other mistakes. I typed this on mobile.
The Government is a Bird