Listen up, ladies! A new research has suggested that women who attend religious services frequently, possibly longer than women who don't. The study conducted over the period of over 16 years, by Tyler J Vanderweele, of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, concluded that women who attended religious services regularly were 33 per cent less likely to die during the study period, as compared with women who never attended services.
Vanderweele and his colleagues collected data every four years, between 1996 and 2012, from nearly 75,000 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study- most of the subjects were either Catholic or Protestant. It was observed that once-a-week attendees were 26 per cent less likely to die, and those attending less than once a week were 23 per cent less likely to die. Overall, frequent religious attendance was associated with 27 per cent lower likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease and a 21 per cent lower risk of death from cancer. Frequent attendance was also associated with significantly less risk of breast cancer and colorectal cancer.
Researchers wrote, "Although attendance at religious services was associated with lower cardiovascular mortality and cancer mortality, attendance was not significantly associated with incidence of breast cancer of cardiovascular disease." Vanderwheele pointed out that so-called observational studies like this one can't prove cause and effect. He added, "That we had data on both service attendance and health repeatedly over time helps provide evidence about the direction of causality." "Though we do not know the mechanisms, research and especially this study, emphasise the importance of religious service attendance to health. Because the study only included middle-aged and older professional women, we do not know whether the results would help for men or for younger persons," said Dr Dan German Blazer of Duke University Medical Centre in Durham.
