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A recent study in Demography claims that attending religious services more than once a week raises the possibility of extending life by at least seven years. The study, reported by the National Institute for Healthcare Research, also suggested that such church attendance has special benefits for African Americans in that, on average, it could add a potential fourteen more years to their life span.

Dr. Robert Hummer and colleagues at the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin took into account other factors—income, education, social ties, health, and lifestyle—while they were studying more than 21,000 American adults who participated. While some of these factors had an influence, they discovered, "a strong religious attendance effect remains."

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