SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Stalling the Grim Reaper Studied

More than just folk wisdom says gravely ill people often stave off death for important occasions, according to researchers who found sharp drops in death rates among Jewish men before Passover and Chinese women before the Harvest Moon Festival.

“The results suggest quite strongly that some people are able to postpone death briefly in order to reach an occasion which is psychologically significant to them,” said lead researcher David P. Phillips, a California sociology professor.

“In the case of the Chinese, there was a drop of 35% in the mortality before the holiday,” he said in an interview Tuesday from UC San Diego.

“And there was a peak in deaths of 35% the week after, over what would normally be expected,” he said.

“In the case of the Jews, the drop was somewhat smaller. It was about 24%,” Phillips said. “And there was a peak, correspondingly, in the week just after the holiday--in that case, Passover,” he said.

No explanation besides a mind-body effect could account for the findings, the researchers said. The mechanisms that produce postponement are also unknown, but an addition to a mind-body interaction might include careful adherence to medication schedules and enhanced care by family or physicians, they said.

Findings about the Chinese were published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. Findings about the Jewish men were published in 1988 in the British journal Lancet.