Religious people live longer than non-believers?

It’s always baffled scientists, but most studies find that religious people live longer than those who are not religious, although no one really knows why, which is what really baffles the scientists, of course.

The latest such study that has arrived at this conclusion is the Women’s Health Initiative, which followed over 90,000 women for over 7 years and found that those who attend religious services regularly were 20 % less likely to die while the study was going on than those who don’t attend religious services at least once a week.

So leaving aside the very thorny of issue as to how one defines “being religious” (clearly, going to synagogue or church or mosque regularly doesn’t for a second mean that you are either more religious or more spiritual – whatever that term actually means – than someone who doesn’t attend religious services; after all, it’s precisely in religious institutions that hypocrites are most likely to hang out, too), why do religious people live longer than non-believers?

Well, it could be that some religions – those who are Seventh Day Adventists , for example – demand healthier lifestyles or such rigorous abstemious behaviour – the Amish, for example – that lead to much better health outcomes.

Or it could just be that social cohesion – belonging to a like-minded group that not only theoretically cares a lot about you but which also demands that you turn up regularly – translates into better health outcomes (just going out once or twice a week in the senior years is tied to better health).

But the authors of this latest study have theoretically accounted for these undoubted benefits from religious attendance, and negated their effects, and yet they still find that regular church attendance is tied to better health and longer life even after you take those factors out.

So as far as I can tell, that really leads to only three other possibilities.

People who become religious are born to be healthier in the first place; that is, whatever genes lead to better health outcomes also lead to those people being more likely to attend religious services.

Or there could be a huge placebo benefit from religion, that is, people who are religious think they are more in control of their lives – or that God is in control and helping them (for example, the thousands of athletes who score or who win an important game and who subsequently thank God for having helped them achieve their goal, as if God would ever be stupid enough to root for one team or player against another; well, maybe God should root against the Yankees) – and that kind of feeling leads to way better health outcomes.

And then there’s this other one that no scientist ever wants to consider, but hey, you never really know: maybe God takes better care of people who pray to Her.