“The studies published to date have not convincingly established
that death can be postponed through force of will or hastened by the loss
of the desire to live,” say Judith A. Skala, R.N., Ph.D., and Kenneth
E. Freedland, Ph.D., of Washington University School of Medicine.
Available research is contradictory, shows only modest effects and is
often of poor quality, Skala and Freedland say. In many cases, these studies
also fail to explain any mechanisms that would delay or advance death.
Their review appears in the May issue of the journal Psychosomatic
Medicine.
This hypothesis, first presented in a sociology journal
30 years ago, suggested that people who would have otherwise died can
will themselves
to stay alive in order to experience some personally or culturally meaningful
event. But the idea doesn’t hold up after a close look at the body
of evidence in this literature.
For instance, one study claimed that there was a 19 percent
dip in deaths among prominent Americans in the month before their birthdays
and a 14
percent rise in the month afterward. However, Skala and Freedland say,
the original authors include the birth month itself in the “after” category.
That meant that some of the “post-birthday” deaths may have
occurred before the actual birthday.
Another study of natural death, suicides and homicides in Philadelphia
in 1982 found near-chance rates of death in the one-, two- and three-month
periods around the birthdays of the dead.
Two studies analyzed the deaths of members of certain religious groups
before and after their major holidays. A study of Catholic priests found
no variation in mortality around Christmas, Easter, birthdays or anniversaries
of their ordination. Another found a dip in deaths before and a rise after
Christmas, but no such pattern around Easter.
Other researchers claimed a 20 percent rise in deaths after Christmas.
A closer look at their data found that the rise really began five days
before the holiday and the death rate on Christmas itself was higher than
the average rate for the preceding or following weeks.
Similarly, one study concluded that deaths among Jewish men were more
likely to show a dip before and a rise after Passover, while another study
found just the opposite pattern. And a study in Israel found no patterns
around major holidays at all, either among Jews or non-Jewish Israelis.
Writing in the same issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, Gary Smith, Ph.D.,
of Pomona College analyzed Asian-American deaths in relation to the Harvest
Moon Festival. The Harvest Moon Festival is celebrated in the fall by Chinese,
Koreans and Vietnamese.
Only one or two subgroups showed any significant variation
from pure chance, and then only by pushing the day of the festival into
the “after-the-festival” category.
But thinking of the festival day as falling after the
festival makes no sense, Smith says, because the central ritual—a ceremonial meal—happens
late that night.
“If a person is really able to postpone death until after the celebration
of an important ceremonial occasion, shouldn’t she be able to postpone
death until after the main ceremonial activity?” Smith asks.
How individuals are supposed to control the advance or
delay of death is an often-unanswered question, too. Some authors cite “stress reactions” or
the benefits of “social support,” but offer few details.
Future studies will have to be better designed to find valid answers,
Skala and Freedland say. That means matching patients with similar illnesses
to eliminate a major variable; learning how patients actually feel about
birthdays and religious holidays, rather than assuming their significance;
and including useful data on possible psychosomatic mechanisms that could
tie the calendar to their time of death.
