God: healthy or unhealthy?

Discovery news reports the findings of a study in America which correlates spiritual beliefs with health.

Those who professed greater religious participation were more likely to be classified as hypertensive. On average, they had higher body mass index scores and were less likely to take prescribed medications.

Nevertheless, the religiously active participants had significantly lower blood pressure, on average, than those who said religion played a small or no role in their lives.

Let's analyse this shall we:

1. People who claimed to be more religious are more likely to have hypertension and a higher BMI.

2. People who claimed to be more religious are less likely to take prescribed medications.

3. People who claimed to be more religious have lower blood pressure (on average), despite the hypertension.

Now what can we glean from these 3 pieces of information?

Firstly I think it's important to understand that hypertension is high blood pressure. So, although on the surface this report is claiming that religious beliefs make you more prone to hypertension but less prone to high blood pressure, this is not, can not in fact, be what it is stating.

So let's restate point 1:

- People who claimed to be more religious are more likely to have high blood pressure and a higher BMI.

Combine this with point 2, which states that they are less likely to take prescribed medications (whether because they do not seek medical avice or otherwise is not stated) and what do we have?

People who claim to be religious are more stressed and less likely to take or heed the advice or medical professionals. Presumably because the belief in a higher powere provides them with the confidence that (a) god will protect them.

So what are we to make of point 3, that they also have lower blood pressure? While on the surface this would appear to contradict point 1, it is important to take note of those magic words "on average".

Quite how the averages is calculated I'm not sure, but let's just assign a scale of 0-100 where 0 is normal blood pressure and 100 is, well, very bad. Lets also assume they interviewed the same number of religious vs. non religious people (probably an inaccurate assumption which could skew the results even more if it is not true).

Out of 1000 religious people, 800 of them have high blood pressure around the 30 mark. This averages out to (800 x 30) / 1000 = 24.

Out of 1000 non-religions people, only 200 of them have high blood pressure. Unfortunately they are quite severe cases and rate around the 75 mark. This averages out to (400 x 75) / 1000 = 30, a higher average than the religious people.

Obviously this is entirely dependant on the sample of people taken, a smaller sample of people in more stressful jobs would yield a higher average.

So what does this survey tell us? Well, assuming that the religious and non-religious groups consist of otherwise similar demographics (otherwise the whole survey is null and void), it would seem to tell us that religion is bad for your health. Not only that but it makes people less likely to do anything about it when bad health strikes.

You heard it here first: god is bad for you.

Categories: Religion, Health