People who learned about relaxed breathing and received soothing touch and music before heart surgery were more likely to be alive 6 months after the procedure, suggesting that these additional steps help speed recovery, according to a study released on Saturday.

People who were prayed for off-site, however, fared no better after their heart procedures, according to a report in The Lancet.

Study author Dr. Mitchell W. Krucoff told that this study is an “early step,” and researchers still have a lot to learn about how to integrate high-tech approaches to medicine with “the rest of the human being.”

“This is not ‘God failed the test,’ or ‘God passed the test,’” said Krucoff, from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “It’s way too early.”

During the study, Krucoff and his colleagues assigned 748 patients undergoing heart surgery to receive either off-site prayer from congregations of various religions, or music, imagery and touch therapy, also called MIT, or no intervention. Patients did not know if they were being prayed for.

Before surgery, as part of MIT, people trained in “healing touch” put their hands in specific places on patients’ bodies, designed to shift energy around the body and promote healing. Patients also listened to their choice of soothing music, which included approximately 10 minutes of guided imagery. They learned about deep breathing, which they were told to continue during the procedure, for which they were awake.

People who were prayed for appeared to fare no better after the heart procedure, and neither prayer nor MIT therapy had any effect on patients’ risk of in-hospital heart events or readmission to the hospital within 6 months.

However, those who received MIT were 65 percent less likely to die within the following 6 months than people who did not receive the intervention.

In addition, MIT-users experienced a “profound” decrease in emotional distress before the procedure, relative to non-MIT-users, Krucoff said in an interview.

Previous research shows that stress can increase inflammation throughout the body, which can interfere with healing after heart surgery, Krucoff noted. It’s possible that, by reducing patients’ anxieties about surgery, MIT assists in their recovery, he added.

In addition, patients given MIT may simply feel more cared for when they receive extra attention from the music, touching and imagery, and that may help in their recovery, Krucoff noted.

“We have no idea what mechanisms are there,” he said.

In an accompanying editorial, the journal notes that studying prayer and alternative therapies “are proper subjects for science, even while transcending its known bounds.”

SOURCE: The Lancet, July 16, 2005.