A survey of over 10,000 Israeli males has indicated that Orthodox Jews have a lower incidence of angina pectoris–chest pains usually due to coronary artery disease–than secular Jews but are more prone to diabetes. The believers also have less fear of heart disease than secularists, the study showed.
The survey, believed to be one of the most extensive of its kind anywhere in the world, was a joint venture of Dr. Meir Shneider of Bar ilan University, Prof. Henry Neufeld and Uri Goldbort of the Cardiac Institute of Tel Hashomer Hospital and Prof. Jack Madly and Dvora Oron of Tel Aviv University.
It showed that 2.9 percent of the religious suffered from angina against 5.8 percent of the nonreligious, almost double. Among observant Jews, 5.3 percent were diabetic compared to 4.3 percent of the non-observant. The latter, however, had a much higher incidence of ulcers–10.4 percent against 7.5 percent.
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