Patients were asked if they wanted to take part in the trial but were not told whether they would be the subject of prayers.
Half were prayed for by a group of strangers who only had the patients' names.
Those who were prayed for had fewer complications, fewer cases of pneumonia and needed less drug treatment.
They also improved more quickly and were able to leave hospital earlier.
A separate study, at Columbia University in New York, asked people in Australia, the U.S. and Canada to pray for named people undergoing IVF treatment in Korea.
Of the group in Korea, half had prayers said about them by the foreign strangers.
Among this half, the success rate for implantation of the embryo in the womb went up from 8 per cent to 16 per cent.
Cases of successful conception - where the foetus started developing - went up from 25 to 50 per cent.
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