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This Daily Jewish
Ritual May Prevent
Heart Attacks

By World Israel News Staff and
University of Cincinnati

W

earing tefillin improves
your heart function and
may even save your life, a
new study shows.
A study conducted by researchers
at the University of Cincinnati (UC)
College of Medicine suggests Jewish
men who put on tefillin every
morning may receive cardiovascular
health benefits.
The ritual, which involves the
tight wrapping of an arm with
leather banding as part of daily
prayer, may generate remote isch-
emic preconditioning (RIC) that
results in protection during heart

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attacks. RIC is an experimental
method of protecting the heart
and other organs by temporarily
restricting blood flow, triggering the
body’s natural protective mecha-
nisms against tissue damage caused
by low oxygen levels.
Jack Rubinstein, M.D., associ-
ate professor in the Division of
Cardiovascular Health and Disease
and a UC Health cardiologist, says
he studied 20 Jewish men living in
Greater Cincinnati, nine who wear
tefillin daily and 11 who don’t, all
aged 18 to 40 and all in good health.
His researchers recorded the
participants’ vital signs, drew blood
for analysis of circulating cytokines
and monocyte function and also
measured blood flow in the arm
not wrapped with tefillin during the
early morning and then after wear-

ing tefillin for 30 minutes.
“We found people who wear tefil-
lin in either the short or long term,
recorded a measurable positive
effect on their blood flow. That has
been associated with better out-
comes in heart disease,” Rubinstein
says.
Blood flow was higher for
men who wore tefillin daily and
improved in all participants after
wearing it just once, explained
Rubinstein.
Men who wore tefillin daily also
had fewer circulating cytokines,
signaling molecules that can cause
inflammation and negative-
ly impact the heart, than
non-users, indicating that
daily use elicits an effect
similar to that observed with
other methods of eliciting
remote ischemic precondi-
tioning-like effect.
Researchers have studied
preconditioning by induc-
ing small heart attacks in
animals and found that they
protected the animal from
larger, more serious heart
attacks in the future. This same
preconditioning could be used by
partially blocking blood flow in one
part of the body and thus serving as
a protective element in another part
of the body to lessen the injury, says
Rubinstein.
“The problem with translating
this to people is we don’t know
when someone will have the heart
attack,” Rubinstein says. “It is
almost impossible to precondition
someone unless they are willing to
do something daily to themselves.
Tefillin use may, in fact, offer pro-
tection as it’s worn on an almost
daily basis.”
Rubinstein says there are also
studies that have found Jewish
Orthodox men have a lower risk of
dying of heart disease compared to
non-Orthodox men. ■