ATTENDANCE AT RELIGIOUS SERVICES, INTERLEUKIN-6, AND OTHER BIOLOGICALPARAMETERS OF IMMUNE FUNCTION IN OLDER ADULTS

First, to examine and explain the relationship between religious servi ce attendance and plasma Interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels, and second, to e xamine the relationship between religious attendance and other immune- system regulators and inflammatory substances. Methods: During the thi rd in-person interview (1992) of the Establishment of Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (EPESE) project, Duke site, 1718 subjects age sixty-five or over had blood drawn for analysis of immune regulators and inflammatory factors, including IL-6 measurements. IL- 6 was examined both as a continuous variable and at a cutoff of 5 pg/m l. Information on attendance at religious services was available from the 1992 interview and two prior interviews (1986 and 1989). Results: Religious attendance was inversely related to high IL-6 levels (> 5 pg /ml), but not to IL-6 measured as a continuous variable. Bivariate ana lyses revealed that high religious attendance in 1989 predicted a lowe r proportion of subjects with high IL-6 in 1992 (beta -.10,p =.01). Hi gh religious attendance in 1992 also predicted a lower proportion of s ubjects with high IL-6 levels in 1992 (beta -.14, p =.0005). When age, sex, race, education, chronic illnesses, and physical functioning wer e controlled, 1989 religious attendance weakened as a predictor of hig h IL-6 (beta -.07, p =.10), but 1992 religious attendance retained its effect (beta = -.10, p =.02). When religious attenders were compared to non-attenders, they were only about one-half as likely to have IL-6 levels greater than 5 ng/ml (OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.40-0.84, p <.005). Rel igious attendance was also related to lower levels of the immune-infla mmatory maskers alpha-2 globulin, fibrin d-dimers, polymorphonuclear l eukocytes, and lymphocytes. While controlling for covariates weakened most of these relationships, adjusting analyses for depression and neg ative life events had little effect. Conclusions: There is a weak rela tionship between religious attendance and high IL-6 levels that could not be explained by other covariates, depression, or negative life eve nts. This finding provides some support for the hypothesis that older adults who frequently attend religious services have healthier immune systems, although mechanism of effect remains unknown.