The Islamic Perspective of Spiritual Intervention Effectiveness on Bio-Psychological Health Displayed by Gene Expression in Breast Cancer Patients

Abstract

BackgroundDuring the last two decades, there have been spiritual/religious interventions in cancer patients to prevent or treat a range of physical problems, including managing chronic pain, coping with the disease, boosting hope and mental health. Although societies are of different faiths and belief systems, what they all share is spirituality.ObjectivesUpon this we put forward the hypothesis of changes in gene receptor expressions as a result of spiritual intervention for the first time in the world.Materials and MethodsIn this study, the spiritual intervention was conducted on 57 volunteer females with early breast cancer involvement. Blood samples were collected prior to and after the spiritual intervention to analyze the changes in dopamine gene receptor expressions as the main site of effect. In order to administer the spiritual intervention backed by Quran, Islam and international standards, issues, with emphasis on peace, human growth and perfection, accepting God as an eternal source of power and kindness to build trust and reduce stress, were selected. They included prayer, patience, reliance, self-sacrifice and forgiveness, altruism and kindness, remission and repentance, thankfulness, zikr (mantra), meditation, and death concept.ResultsObtained results from peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples analyzed by real time-PCR showed significant reduction in dopamine gene receptor (DRD1-5) expressions in comparison with those of pre-test scores and the control group.ConclusionsSpiritual intervention based on Islamic principals can bring back mental health, increase hope and quality of life and eventually change dopamine gene receptor expressions resulting in reduction of cell proliferation, thus better prevention and management in breast cancer patients compared to other forms of treatment.

Spirituality and Health: A Middle Eastern Perspective

“…Results of this review found that the majority of Middle Eastern research on spirituality and health has been conducted in either Iran or Jordan. Only two studies were found that utilised an experimental/interventional design (Moeini et al 2016;Hosseini et al 2016) and both of these were conducted in Iran. This lack of interventional research on spirituality and health is reflected globally (Jim et al 2015;Moreira-Almeida et al 2014).…”

“…For example, this review highlighted the number of studies that have investigated the relationship between spirituality and quality of life (Al-Natour et al 2017;Cruz et al 2017;Jafari et al 2014b), similar to trends in other regions (De Bernardin Gonçalves et al 2017). Two of the studies included in this review were randomized control trials that tested the effect of Islam-based spiritual interventions and demonstrated positive effects on spiritual wellbeing (Moeini et al 2016) and on biopsychological health, as measured by gene expressions in blood samples (Hosseini et al 2016). However, the study by Hosseini et al (2016) was limited in terms of methodology and analysis.…”

“…Two of the studies included in this review were randomized control trials that tested the effect of Islam-based spiritual interventions and demonstrated positive effects on spiritual wellbeing (Moeini et al 2016) and on biopsychological health, as measured by gene expressions in blood samples (Hosseini et al 2016). However, the study by Hosseini et al (2016) was limited in terms of methodology and analysis. This is in line with the global literature that calls for better designed experimental studies of spirituality and health, to test the impact of spiritual interventions on outcomes such as quality of life, quality of care, patient satisfaction etc.…”

“…Two of the studies were randomised controlled trials (Moeini et al 2016;Hosseini et al 2016) conducted in Iran. One of the trial studies examined the effect of an Islam-based religious program on spiritual wellbeing in elderly patients with hypertension (n = 52) in two health centres (Moeini et al 2016).…”

“…However, mean spiritual wellbeing scores were significantly higher in the intervention group post-test and at 1 month follow up than the control group. The second trial study tested the effect of a spiritual intervention on biopsychological health as displayed by gene expression in breast cancer patients (n = 57) (Hosseini et al 2016). The intervention focused on the concepts of prayer, reliance, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, altruism, kindness, remission, repentance, thankfulness, meditation, mantra and death.…”