Regular attendance at religious services may contribute to longevity.
This was suggested in a study published in Psychology and Health by researchers at Yeshiva University in New York and its medical school, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The research, conducted among post-menopausal women of many religious denominations, was part of the Women's Health Initiative, a national long-term study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The study showed as much as a 20 percent decrease in the overall risk of mortality for those attending religious services. Reluctant to draw conclusions, the researchers suggest more study to determine why.
"There is something here that we don't quite understand," said Yeshiva professor Eliezer Schnall.
The co-author of the study, Einstein professor Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, said, "The next step is to figure out how the effect of religiosity is translated into biological mechanisms that affect rates of survival ... We do not infer causation [which] can only be done through a clinical trial. There may be confounding factors ... which could lead people who are at reduced risk for an impending event to also be the ones who attend services."
Selective memory
Older persons remember fewer negative events than their younger counterparts do, researchers report in the journal Psychological Science.
"Seniors actually use their brain differently ... when it comes to storing memory," reports Dr. Florin Dolcos, which is why the elderly tend to see the past through rose-colored glasses.
The University of Alberta team reported earlier in the journal Neurobiology of Aging that healthy seniors are able to regulate emotion better than young people, so they are less affected by upsetting events.
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