Susan Lutgendorf, psychology professor at the University of Iowa, who carried out the study, said: "There's something involved in the act of religious attendance, whether it's the group interaction, the world view or just the exercise to get out of the house. There's something that seems to be beneficial."

Robert Wallace, a co-author of the report, added that doctors could even prescribe a course of church attendance to benefit patients.

"It was an interesting and provocative find," he said. "I think that now, we will be trying to aggregate the meaning and experience of going to church to the extent that one can produce medical intervention based on a better understanding of that."

The researchers found that among individuals who reported never attending religious services, the risk of death over the 12-year period was 52 per cent.

By contrast, the risk of death of those who attended church services more than once a week was 17 per cent over the same period.

Thirty five per cent of the 64 participants who never attended church died before the end of the study.

By comparison, 85.5 per cent of participants who went to church twice or more a week survived.

Regular church attendance was associated with lower levels of Interleukin-6, a chemical that can cause arterial damage at elevated levels and is linked to age-related diseases.

Although the researchers acknowledged that regular churchgoers could lead more abstemious lives, they insisted that they had factored these variants into the study by examining a control group of equally healthy non-believers. The variation, they said, had made no appreciable difference.

"It is possible that more frequent religious attenders may have engaged in better health behaviours, such as exercise or lower dietary fat intake," the researchers wrote.

"The present data included a limited assessment of health behaviours such as smoking, sleep, alcohol intake, cigarette use and obesity.

"This is the first study of which we are aware to find support for the hypothesis that more frequent religious attendance in a population-based sample of older adults is associated with lower mortality."

Rev John Hardie, a Church of Scotland priest and former chaplain of St Paul's Cathedral in Dundee, celebrated his 88th birthday this year and attributed his longevity to a Christian way of life.

"If you live the type of life that a Christian should live and take things in modernation, then you do live longer," he said.

"I find that I can have a drop of alcohol now and then and I smoke a pipe, but I don't inhale. At the moment, I go to church once a week but I'm a bit unsteady on my pins and I find that I need another priest to help me lift the chalice when I take communion at the altar."

A Church of England spokesman said: "For some people, the fact that there is a greater power whom we are confident loves us and has our best interests at heart, must remove the daily stresses and worries of those who do not believe.

"But of course, faith is not an ant colony: there are probably as many different explanations for why this research has found what it has as there are people who took part."

Prof Lutgendorf's findings would appear to be borne out by a number of devoted Christians who have enjoyed remarkably long lives.

Dame Thora Hird, the actress who presented the BBC1 religious programme, Songs of Praise, lived to 91. She was a regular churchgoer before her death last year.

Pope John Paul II celebrated his 84th birthday this year and still carries out a gruelling schedule of travel and daily appointments.

Rev Edward Lewis, the chief executive of The Hospital Chaplaincies Council, said that although the research was "very interesting," it was not reflected in his experience.

"Sickness or illness hit people who go to church just as much as those who don't," he said. "People get cancer at 30 even if they go four or five times a week.

"Going to church doesn't protect us from all the horrible things that happen, but it gives us the strength to cope with them."

END