美国英语听力80篇4 Lesson62

[00:07.39]Researchers in the United States have shown that prayer

[00:14.32]may help speed the recovery of people with heart problems.

[00:19.96]The researchers found that heart patients did better

[00:25.31]when someone was praying for them.

[00:28.87]They say the patients who were the subjects of prayer

[00:35.00]generally needed less medicine and recovered more quickly.

[00:41.43]The findings were reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

[00:47.46]The study was supervised 1 by researchers at the Mid-America Herat Institute

[00:55.30]at Saint 2 Luke's Hospital in Kansas City,Missouri.

[01:00.55]It involved almost 1,000 people who were admitted to the hospital

[01:08.10]for serious heart problems.

[01:11.26]All of  the patients in the study received the usual medical care.

[01:18.92]The researchers secretly divided the patients into two groups.

[01:26.26]Members of prayer groups prayed every day for four weeks

[01:33.02]for the recovery of some of the patients.

[01:37.25]The prayer groups were told nothing about the patients

[01:42.40]they were praying for other than their first names and that they were sick.

[01:49.84]No one was asked to pray for the other patients.

[01:54.29]None of the patients or their doctors

[01:59.64]knew about the study or that people were praying for some of the patients.

[02:06.07]Heart researcher William Harris helped organize the study.

[02:12.31]He identified thirty-five different ways

[02:17.95]to measure the condition of the patients.

[02:21.98]Mister Harris says the patients who were prayed for

[02:27.91]had about 10% fewer problems than the other patients.

[02:34.33]The researchers say their findings suggest that prayer

[02:40.65]might be an effective addition to traditional medical care.

[02:46.19]This was not the first study to reach such findings.

[02:52.43]A study crried out at San Francisco General Hospital in California

[02:58.96]in 1988 had similar results.

[03:03.88]However,Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School in Cambridge

[03:10.80]Massachusetts criticized the two studies.

[03:15.53]Doctor Benson said the two studies used questionable 3 methods.

[03:22.87]He said other studies have found no improvement

[03:28.90]in patients as a result of prayer.

[03:32.74]Harold Koenig of  the Duke University School of Medicine

[03:39.51]has supervised several studies on the effect of spiritual beliefs on health.

[03:46.72]He said the findings of the new study are very important.

[03:52.86]However,he admitted that the findings will be questioned.

[03:58.68]Doctor Koenig said he is not sure how many doctors

[04:04.43]will accept the importance of prayer.