Another Possible Benefit of Going to Church: A 33 Percent Chance of Living Longer

Religious services aren’t just good for your soul — they might be good for your health. A new study, released Monday in a journal published by the American Medical Association, says that those who attend church services more often actually have a better chance of staying alive in the long run. Over a 20-year span, the study surveyed a group of more than 76,000 female nurses, most of whom were Catholic and Protestant. At the end of 20 years, more than 13,000 of them had died. The women who went to religious services more than once a week, it turned out, were 33 percent less likely to be in that group who died, compared to those who never attended services.