Church-goers are generally believed to have “good” habits and “clean” lifestyles automatically and instinctively affecting their health, and according to a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the good and the long life go hand in hand.
In a study done by a Johns Hopkins researcher, subjects responding with personal and socioeconomic information to a questionnaire, suggested that piety was an unexpected but intriguing variable.
Men who attended church infrequently ran the risk of developing fatal heart disease almost twice as often as men who went to church at least once a week. (And the association is not the result of sick men unable to attend services regularly.) Other major diseases including cancer, cirrhosis, tuberculosis and respiratory ailments appeared to be statistically linked with “piety.”
Whatever the explanation, church-going was termed “a favorable input.”
It seems rather obvious that those with no time for church are probably overworked to begin with and are the most likely heart attack victims.
And for those who have the time but lack the desire or motivation to attend worship services, chances are that their physical metabolism is suffering due to the absence of even the slightest replenishing of spiritual and mental calm, peace, inner strength, whatever.
Regardless of personal convictions concerning “mind over matter,” mental health and physical well-being are undeniably related. So about next Sunday.