Integrative Noetic Therapies as Adjuncts to Percutaneous Intervention During Unstable Coronary Syndromes: Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training (MANTRA) Feasibility Pilot
📄 Original study ↗📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Can prayer and other mind-body practices help heart patients? A Duke University team ran a fascinating pilot study to find out. They took 150 patients undergoing emergency heart procedures and randomly assigned them to receive one of four "noetic" (mind-based) therapies — relaxation, guided imagery, touch therapy, or distant intercessory prayer from strangers — or just standard care. The good news: patients were enthusiastic (88% agreed to participate), and the therapies appeared to reduce short-term complications by 25-30%. Prayer groups actually had the fewest immediate complications. But here is the unsettling twist: every single death over the following six months happened in the therapy groups, not the standard-care group. That difference was not statistically significant, but it was a striking enough red flag to demand careful attention in larger follow-up trials. This pilot directly spawned the bigger MANTRA II study, and became a much-debated data point in the ongoing scientific argument over whether distant healing actually works.
Research Notes
The MANTRA I feasibility pilot from Duke, establishing that noetic therapy research is logistically viable in acute cardiac care. Directly led to the larger MANTRA II trial (Krucoff 2005). A key primary study in the distant healing/prayer controversy, cited by Masters (2007) and Roe & Roxburgh (2015) meta-analyses. Notable for the safety signal: all 6-month deaths were in noetic arms.
A prospective, randomized pilot study (MANTRA I) at Duke University examined four noetic therapies — stress relaxation, imagery, touch therapy, and off-site intercessory prayer — as adjuncts to percutaneous coronary intervention in 150 patients with unstable coronary syndromes. Patients were randomized across five arms (four noetic plus standard therapy). Acceptance was excellent (88% consent, 98% treatment completion). No outcomes reached statistical significance, but there was a 25-30% absolute reduction in adverse periprocedural outcomes with noetic therapy (ACE 20.4% vs 25.9%). Off-site prayer showed the lowest complication rates. However, all 6-month mortality occurred in noetic therapy groups (9.2% vs 0%, P = .12), raising safety considerations for future trials.
Links
Related Papers
Companion
- Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomised controlled trial — Leibovici, Leonard (2001)
- Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of Uncertainty and Certainty of Receiving Intercessory Prayer — Benson, Herbert (2006)
- Distant Healing of Surgical Wounds: An Exploratory Study — Schlitz, Marilyn (2012)
- The Efficacy of "Distant Healing": A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials — Astin, John A (2000)
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📋 Cite this paper
Krucoff, Mitchell W, Crater, Suzanne W, Green, Cindy L, Maas, Arthur C, Seskevich, Jon E, Lane, James D, Loeffler, Karen A, Morris, Kenneth, Bashore, Thomas M, Koenig, Harold G (2001). Integrative Noetic Therapies as Adjuncts to Percutaneous Intervention During Unstable Coronary Syndromes: Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training (MANTRA) Feasibility Pilot. American Heart Journal. https://doi.org/10.1067/mhj.2001.119138
@article{krucoff_2001_integrative,
title = {Integrative Noetic Therapies as Adjuncts to Percutaneous Intervention During Unstable Coronary Syndromes: Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training (MANTRA) Feasibility Pilot},
author = {Krucoff, Mitchell W and Crater, Suzanne W and Green, Cindy L and Maas, Arthur C and Seskevich, Jon E and Lane, James D and Loeffler, Karen A and Morris, Kenneth and Bashore, Thomas M and Koenig, Harold G},
year = {2001},
journal = {American Heart Journal},
doi = {10.1067/mhj.2001.119138},
}