“Tech titan Steve Jobs’ trust in alternative medicine immediately after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis likely shortened his life, a Harvard Medical School researcher contends,” Bill Hutchinson reports for The Daily News.
“Researcher Ramzi Amri says the Apple cofounder’s death last week at age 56 was ‘unnecessarily early,'” Hutchinson reports. “In a lengthy post on the popular question-and-answer web site, Quora, Amri argues that Jobs reduced his chances of survival by resisting his doctors’ recommendation of immediate surgery after his October 2003 diagnosis.”
Hutchinson reports, “Jobs, a practicing Buddhist, instead pursued special alternative medicines and diets for nine months before eventually undergoing the operation to remove his tumor, according to published reports… Amri described Jobs’ form of cancer as ‘mild’ and could have been remedied if he had immediately opted for surgery. By the time Jobs underwent surgery in July 2004 at Stanford University Medical Center it was too late, Amri contends.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Citymark” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Doctor: There’s no way of knowing if nine-month surgery delay shortened Steve Jobs’ life – October 15, 2011
And why would we expect anyone in the (Western) medical field to have anything positive about any (Eastern) non-invasive medicine? We practice medicine the way we practice our foreign policy… if it looks threatening, kill it.
Agree!
The medical field killed my mom!
Make no mistake alternative medicine is based in superstition, witch craft, voodoo, denial, fear, and foolish ignorance.
Western allopathic medicine is ased in science, skill, technology, information and knowledge.
Which lot do you want to throw in with?
Western medicine kicked my dog and raped my girlfriend!!!
The medical field killed my Dad, too, but not because he ignored doctor’s recommendations. Waiting 9 months after cancer diagnosis is suicide. It is very unfortunate that SJ ignored the cancer by not cutting it out.
Anyone have a story that proves vitamin pills cures cancer?
BTW, I do not recommend Norris Cancer Center in Los Angeles. Totally mis-managed and full of septic shock virus. Even their doctors die of septic shock.
No, kill it…with fire… if it doesn’t make sense and is based on superstition not facts and science. And rightly so.
Earth to nutjob: ridiculous comments/beliefs like that based on blind faith in an ideal about a subject you have little to no understanding of prevents people from seeking help when they need it. it’s not some philosophical battle against the unknown or ‘other’, it’s thousands of the brightest people on earth accumulating evidence through research vs UNREGULATED myth and tradition. and if you’re wondering, yes, I am a doctor.
Dude, we got no idea what kind of treatment Jobs chose. No one can guarantee either way would have been best… AND yes, you may be a doctor, but i work in medicine too…
The U.S. is myopic at times… instead of embracing different methods… it’s the basic… Radiation, Chemo, Then take it out. There are other therapies that could be offered in conjunction… Especially, when there are evidence-based papers that say so…
In any case… in the end NOTHING IS GUARANTEED. I have seen surgery save and kill people… Human error is always a factor…
So, what you say as ‘evidence through research’… why shut out certain therapies? High dose IV vitamins, immunocal, etc. That have studies that show they work…
I don’t sell the stuff, just have seen results…
For those interested, See documentary “Food Matters.” It’s not herbs… but science… understanding cause… Anyone can look up Immunocal… use it in conjunction with RAD/Chemo Rx…
I’ve seen Food Matters and many of its claims have been debunked. Others are so absurdly false it was laughable. I am not anti-alternative medicine but believe it should mainly be used as a compliment to science-based treatment.
The problem with western “Science” in medicine is that it was long ago co-opted for profit. I could easily cite dozens of examples of pharmaceutical companies using bad science to gain approval for their harmful products, I could also easily cite products they used their connections with bought politicians to fast track the approval process for harmful drugs to bring it to market. I could also cite examples through out the history of western medicine where the established “science” was quakery and outright wrong.
Don’t be so Arrogantly naive. Both Eastern and Western medicine have good and bad.
Steve Jobs was a worthless nutjob fruitarian capitalist scumbag. He screwed his business partners, friends, and family. It’s only disappointing his death wasn’t more painful and prolonged.
He was hardly an innovator and certainly a copyright/patent troll. Cisco system licenses their trademark “IPhone” to Apple. There were at the very least several rectangular glass faced internet capable cellphones before the iphone was ever released by Apple.
Fact: Apple in their infinite wisdom tried to sue the longstanding mexican telecom company IFONE. Which predates the Iphone by at least several years. Fortunately Apple lost and Steve Jobs is dead.
and who are you to say?
Scott and Carol, I am completely empathetic to both of your opinions, but it was not the medical establishment that brought the demise of Steve, it was Cancer.
Western medicine is not perfect but it’s far superior to eastern mysticism. For God’s sake, if you have cancer, changing your diet and meditating isn’t going to do a damn thing for you, have the thing cut out asap!
Changing your diet can radically slow a tumor’s growth rate, if you know the thing in your diet that is stimulating the tumor’s growth.
That is not to say that changing your diet will get rid of the tumor (it won’t) or that most people can figure out that particular food that is feeding the tumor.
Uurrm. “Particular foods” don’t “feed tumors” any more than only particular foods feed your body. A tumor is part of your body and is equally well “fed” by everything you eat. Your body is very adept at converting anything you eat into the basic building blocks of the body. I cite the fact that you can make dumb Americans out of a diet of fries and burgers alone.
I fully support moderne medicine as well as use of diet and “eastern” medicine.
You should do a little reading on free radicals, their content in certain foods and their effect on cancer cells. You might be surprised.
Typically, this conversation misses the bigger picture. We’re all going to die. What ultimately matters is your grasp of deeper meaning — the eternal vs. the temporal.
Say you go and get a cancer cut out. Fine. You live longer. But then you die. And so what? You die as ignorant as you were, or perhaps more ignorant for your fears.
Now say you use the cancer as a wake-up call. You let it turn your sight to your mortality, to the temporal nature of nearly everything we see — all of it is from dust on its way to dust. That insight isn’t just passing for you. You grasp it. You take it into yourself, looking for what is eternal, what lasts, what goes beyond the changes of this world, which isn’t much. You dedicate, or rededicate, your life to the pursuit of that, taking up meditation, mindfulness in diet, awareness of the deeper truth that underlies all things, but which is not obvious until you really seek it.
Okay, so the latter shortens your life. But what quality was that life? How much better did you become as a human being? How much different did your relationships become, your focus, your insight?
Western medicine is fact-based toward killing the disease. And so look at the Western World, with that same emphasis on so much. Never has there been a richer society on earth. And so many are so unhappy. They live longer than most other societies the planet has known, but they are anxious, lost, worried, harried, and acquisitive to the extreme. And why? All of it is an acting out of their deep desire for meaning — meaning which they search for in wealth, health, busyness, perfection, knowledge, etc. But all those things pass away. So pursuit of meaning through them can lead only to more anxiety.
Read the Tao-de-Ching (spellings differ). How is it that you find the Tao (the Way) by stepping aside from power, from wealth, from knowledge… It’s because those things offer false promise.
The West thinks we’ve gotten it right because our science of money, nutrition, medicine, media, war-making, etc., has built us up so high, but the society is frail in spirit.
So which is better? Long, wealthy, ultimately empty life, or shorter, poorer, grounded, meaningful, happy life? In the West most opt for the former. Some of you think even the question is ridiculous. But look at the saints. Consider the great human beings — the think different folks.
This is the primary way they thought different.
Me, I’d rather be dead at 56 and enlightened than dead at 96 with nothing but a life of vanity and chasing after the wind to show for it…
None of your descriptions of life are mutually exclusive.
I choose the long, wealthy, grounded, meaningful, happy life.
“… I’d rather be dead at 56 and enlightened than dead at 96 with nothing but a life of vanity …”
I’d rather be enlightened and dead at 96.
Maybe SJ could have lived longer but you’re right, survive cancer and a few years later your dead anyhow. Not many have cheated death.
yes, we all know that ground up tiger claws and rhino horn cure almost everything
swap western with “evidence based”
eastern with “no proof at all”
Western medicine killed my friend, literally. So yeah.
[I’m only making this initial statement in the interest of providing a little background to the poor polarized black & white shortsighted types who are unfortunately victims of the environment we’ve created in our country, and consequently the world]:
I am a liberal-thinking, educated, productive & successful intelligent person.
Are there problems within the medical field in the US and the pharmaceutical industry worldwide? Yes.
Is your life expectancy greater than that of your parents? Yes.
Is MUCH greater than your grandparents? Yes.
Are you better off because of scientific research in many fields that took place before and during your lifetime? Without a doubt yes.
Jobs was obviously a brilliant man. Smart people can certainly believe stupid thing, or make stupid decisions at times, for many possible reasons. People smart enough to become our president have consulted psychics. Some of them have been members of churches or “people of faith” (although only a fraction of those who claimed that). I’ve known wildly successful people who have purchased special metal bracelets to help their golf swing, or who wear shoes containing magnets to help them ward off the proverbial toxins or whatever.
The most brilliant among us can be take by BS, especially when at their most vulnerability, during times of crisis, mourning, dementia, etc… The smartest of humans have thought and done lots of dumb stuff. We’re human.
I don’t know if the researcher (author) is correct or not. I know Jobs looked to “alternative therapies” at times during his illness, but I don’t know that be shunned medical science and reason. If so, that is terribly sad.
You can pray all you want, but you don’t really believe. Otherwise you wouldn’t seek medical care, take ANY sort of medication, stop at red lights, lock your doors, etc… You have the sense to know that god will not be showing up to heal you, magically protect you from a car accident, or prevent thieves from stealing from you. You don’t have faith at all. You are an atheist due to reasoning, experience, intelligence and survival. No matter how strong your “faith” is, it’s not stronger than your brain. Prove your faith by walking off a rooftop, opening the door at altitude in a plane, driving off a cliff. Even YOU are smart enough to know that no god is going to show up to save the day, as evidenced by your smart decision not to test that faith. You are an atheist. Embrace it.
1. Ramzi Amri never treated Jobs, nor he has any idea when and how he was diagnosed and which treatments were used.
2. Jobs’ surgery was done in August of 2004, not in July, and he was diagnosed shortly before than, not in October 2003.
4. Jobs himself told the story of his cancer in May of 2005, clearly saying that he was diagnosed in 2004.
5. The only “source” of this nonsense story is Forbes’ hearsay story from few years ago which was released exactly around Apple’s quarterly results then and had obvious goal to play on investors fears as “bearish” trick.
(Sorry, the point #4 should be written as #3, and #5 as #4.)
Alternatively, point #3 might be that as of 2005 Jobs was perfectly clean of any detectable trace of cancer.
Point #3.5 might be that this particular cancer presumably takes many years before it would be possible to find any indication of it. So even if this eight month delay existed (though there is no information that it did), the fact that there was a diagnosis already means that it could be, in long term, too late even before anyone had an idea. For a very slow moving cancers it time periods like that make no difference — in many cases there is no way to escape the tragedy no matter how early you try to do it since it is already too late once patient learns about the diagnosis.
>August of 2004, not in July, and he was diagnosed shortly
> before than, not in October 2003.
Waiting for 10 MONTHS is not “shortly after”. In terms of a cancer diagnosis that the difference between life and death.
10 months is way, way too long. In particular for a malign pancreatic cancer which is one of most lethal cancer forms there is.
Whenever you get a cancer diagnosis, you should, you must get to the hospital immediately. Like the very next day, if not the same day. Everything else is like gambling with your life.
Did you read the rest of the points listed?
Jobs was diagnosed in summer of 2004, “about year ago” (quote from Jobs) relative to his Stanford speech from 2005.
This whole story from the article directly contradicts to the basic facts on what happened (another one is the month when the surgery was performed).
You make a good point, that Steve, himself, mentioned in his Stanford commencement speech in 2005, that he was diagnosed “last year”. We’ll probably find out for sure, in Steve’s book.
Having said that, IF, it’s true that Steve delayed surgery to try alternative therapies, then he might have shortened his life. My older brother is a Johns Hopkins trained CT surgeon, and that’s what he believes, IF, Steve delayed his surgery.
Further, having to do a “Whipple” procedure indicates that Steve’s tumor was advanced. Any significant delay worsens your prognosis. So, it all comes down to whether the rumor that Steve delayed his surgery is true or not.
While I agree that “sooner is better” as a generality,
The first fatal flaw in this debate is that the exact date of metastasis is not known (let alone to speculators who don’t have his medical records).
Classically, the reason why PC is so fatal is because it has metastasized and spread to other organs before it is even diagnosed.
The second flaw is that there are some rare (benign) forms of PC that do not merit immediate surgery; indications are that this is what Steve had.
The third flaw is that rare Cancer forms lack statistical data (sampling) with which to be able to accurately generalize things like survival claims, rates, durations, etc. Let’s not forget that the best estimates are only ~20% (ignoring the 5% risk of dying on the operating table during the Whipple) and that’s for only 5 years (vs Steve’s 7 year).
Flaw#4: surgeons ALWAYS want to cut. Of course in the case of PC, ~90% of all cases aren’t totally unsuitable, and the 10% that are left aren’t automatically amenable for a Whipple…even though one may eventually be attempted even if previously assessed as inoperable. Of course, that means higher risks & lower likelihood of desired outcome.
This ‘researcher’ does no favors to Harvard’s reputation.
-hh
Speculation at best.
Baloney. Very unprofessional of him to make such a claim when he has not reviewed the patient’s chart, and all he knows of the situation is what was publicly reported or allowed to be reported by Steve Jobs.
As I recall, it took quite some time for him to be diagnosed, and there were a couple of misdiagnoses along the way. You can’t exactly start any kind of treatment until you have correctly identified the cause.
My stepmother’s father recently underwent chemo and radiation for cancer, which the doctors have now admitted wasn’t cancerous and that he didn’t need to undergo the treatments. They recommended it at the time “just in case,” even though all the tests told them it wasn’t cancerous.
The fact is, doctors can be wrong, too. Medicine is FAR from an exact science, and FAR from being able to cure anyone. “Modern” medicine is aimed at treating symptoms, not underlying causes, and is a bit of a guessing game anyway.
Jobs lived many years after his early diagnosis, far longer than his doctors gave him and far longer than the average survival rate for his type of cancer (if it was correctly diagnosed and correctly reported).
Excellent. I was prepared to retype exactly what you just said. Jobs live longer than any of the percentages would allow for and we were quite lucky to have him as long as we did. This kind of second guessing is ghoulish.
>Jobs lived many years after his early diagnosis, far longer
> than his doctors gave him and far longer than the average
> survival rate for his type of cancer (if it was correctly
> diagnosed and correctly reported
Wrong. Steve did NOT lived longer than the average. He was diagnosed with endocrine islet pancreatic cancer. THAT kind of cancer is rare and patients life for about 10 years in average.
The “standard” form of pancreatic cancer kills in between 6 months to 3 years.
>The fact is, doctors can be wrong, too.
Nobody ever denied that.
>Medicine is FAR from an exact science,
The only exact science there is is mathematics. But that’s not the point. Science is more that just being exact. It’s about procedures, principles and methods. Modern medicine IS a science, it’s research uses scientific methods. Occams’s razor is used as a principle for diagnosis.
>and FAR from being able to cure anyone. “
No one and nothing can do that. Nature (which includes diseases and death) will always be the ultimate winner. Medicine can not prevent death, but it can temporarily cure and extend life up to a certain point.
>Modern” medicine is aimed at treating symptoms, not >underlying causes,
Bullshit. Just plain bullshit.
However there are in fact some diseases that currently can not be cured.
Like AIDS. Or Hepatitis C. Several genetic mishaps.
There is nothing else left than to research and treat the symptoms in the meantime.
>and is a bit of a guessing game anyway.
The problem is that symptoms can vary from patient to patient and several symptoms can indicate several different diseases.
It’s really not that easy, in particular if the symptoms make no sense or the disease is rare.
actually- math is not an exact science. no more than physics. and physics, in some cases, is all too exact a science.
Right. Math is an inexact science. Sometimes, 2 2 equals 5. And, eveytime a 0 spontaneously becomes a 1, it makes your Mac have a kernal panic.
I really hope you are having fun in that alternate reality you created with your mind. Otherwise, all your ignorance and delusion would be a complete waste.
well.. i realize you probably only went so far with math. prolly as far as with gravity when your mom dropped you on your head….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_mathematics
.. And I suppose you know nothing of mathematical paradoxes?
let me know when you get out of intellectual little league, son.
lol.. not to mention 2 2 equals nothing without an operator.
but hey- you were all bristling with tardlike wonder at the opportunity to take a tardlike jab at me.. but sadly, you are just a tard. so.. i’ll pat you on your tard head and send you on your tard way.
t00dl3s(:
I wrote a plus sign, but it was removed from the comment when it was posted. No idea why. Try and write a plus sign and I’d bet it gets removed from your comment too.
Reconcile the Heisenburg uncertainty principal, and mind your own ignorance. The fact is that Mathematics accounts for uncertainty with the concept of probability. Using your implied declarative sarcasm of the sum of 2 and 2 betrays your closed mindedness and so your own ignorance of the broader concept of mathematics. There are no exact sciences only exact rules.
All great points, KillerCat. Alt-med proponents so often fail to realize that alternative medicine that is actually shown to work is — medicine.
The article does suffer from far too much speculation about Jobs’ specific medical condition, treatment given, etc. His story may very well be a cautionary tale about relying on alternative medicine, but without well established facts, the writer ultimately weakens his point. He let the opportunity to peg a story to a very high-profile case take precedence over due rigor.
It’s unfortunate, because so many people have been harmed by a knee-jerk rejection of legitimate medicine in favor of snake-oil salesmen.
Funny because the last time I checked western medicine is the 3rd leading killer of americans.
Let us see prescription pills, unnecessary procedures and operations, chemo drugs, hospital acquired infections.
It is also funny because only a handful of chemotherapy/radiotherapy patients LIVE and when they do they live quite a miserable life with all organs near failing status. Like they always say in the operating room, THE OPERATION IS SUCCESSFUL but the patient died anyway. Funny.
The only good thin about western medicine is when it is applied during emergency cases, hands down one if not the best. But for preventive medicine and curing it? Nah.
That is nonsense
FYI according to the CDC for 2007 the top 10 leading causes of death did not include anything about medical malpractice.
I’ll paste it here for you
In 2007, the 10 leading causes of death were, in rank order: Diseases of heart; Malignant neoplasms(tumors); Cerebrovascular diseases(strokes etc); Chronic lower respiratory diseases; Accidents (unintentional injuries); Alzheimer’s disease; Diabetes mellitus; Influenza and pneumonia; Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis; and Septicemia. They accounted for approximately 76 percent of all deaths occurring in the United States.
Actually if you would have looked at the CDC data longer than 2 seconds and had drilled down into #3 (accidents) you would have found that a large subset of the total number was in fact overdose.
Truth,
First off accidents is #4 not 3. Reading is fundamental and counting is too
Second if what you say is true, that overdose is a component of #4, that does not make overdose the 4th most likely cause of death. It means overdose is a PORTION of the larger group called accidents.
Additionally overdose is usually self administered, and often involving illicit drugs. Equating drug users overdosing and western medicine is a fallacy
> Nature (which includes diseases and death) will always be the ultimate winner.
You’re right. And in saying this you’re discounting everything that you’ve been trained to believe. Nature knows best. Nature WILL always be the ultimate winner, including, but not limited to, death and disease. That means that it will also always be the ultimate winner in healing. Always has and always will.
Doctors are trained to CUT. If you don’t know what it is or you’re scared of it, cut it out. I find it hard to believe that everything we need to survive is not provided to us. Man-made vitamins, man-invented “cures” are all inferior to the Nature’s vast power, in life and in death. “Modern medicine” may be extending life, but in my opinion it’s not doing much for quality of life, at least no more than natural alternatives could provide. Drug companies have ZERO desire to help. They are publicly traded businesses with a fiduciary obligation to shareholders. Read: sell more drugs, not cure disease. The AMA Brainwashing Brotherhood (yes, research their beginnings as a group designed from the beginning to squash natural cures) needs to open their eyes to the power of natural treatments (herbs, essential oils, chiropractic, acupuncture/pressure, reflexology, etc.) and give the body a chance to do what it was designed to do: heal itself without invasive procedures. “NATURE WILL always be the ultimate winner.”
>Doctors are trained to CUT. If you don’t know what it is or you’re scared of it, cut it out
Not true. Watchful waiting is a course of treatment for some situations. Foreign objects such as shrapnel and bullets are often left in a person’s body, because unlike in the movies, removing the object may do more harm than good.
>medicine is not good at extending quality of life
Tell that to your ancient ancestors who rarely lived to 40. Tell that to children who regularly developed crippling club feet, cleft palletes, malaria, tuberculosis or whooping cough, or the like, each of which are easily corrected or prevented with modern medicine.
The truth is you don’t know what you are talking about. Nature is not
going to save you.
Talk to Darwin.
>And in saying this you’re discounting everything that you’ve#
>been trained to believe.
I’m not trained to believe but to know and to research.
Scientific knowledge can be verified or falsified.
The superstition in which you believe like a religion can not be verified and is just that : superstition.
>Nature knows best.
Nature knows nothing as it is not an intelligent being. Nature is just the nature. A collection of feed-back loops, rules rooted in physics, etc.
> That means that it will also always be the ultimate winner in
> healing. Always has and always will.
No it does NOT mean anything like that. Death is an integral part of life, of nature. Nothing that lives, lives forever. That’s what I meant. Even stars (for rednecks : those bright burning balls of gas, like our sun) do not live forever and end their “lives” someday.
>Doctors are trained to CUT.
Not, quite right. You mean surgeons.
And not even a surgeon is allowed to cut everywhere.
>If you don’t know what it is or you’re scared of it, cut it out.
Wrong. You have NO idea of medicine or science. Not a clue.
You are like a blind man talking about a painting from a distance.
>I find it hard to believe that everything we need to survive is
> not provided to us.
That’s why you are dumb and believe in superstition.
>Man-made vitamins,
Oh, make no mistake : I prefer and recommend fruits and vegetables.
In fact, fresh fruits and vegetables are much healthier than a vitamin pill. But that’s not the point.
>man-invented “cures” are all inferior to the Nature’s vast >power, in life and in death.
Wrong. Simply wrong. Spreading that nonsense is down-right dangerous and irresponsible.
Yes, there are certain substances in several plants that can be used to cure diseases. But just by having those plants cures nothing.
>“Modern medicine” may be extending life, but in my opinion
>it’s not doing much for quality of life, at least no more than
> natural alternatives could provide.
There are no real alternatives that provides cure.
Yes, placebos can induce the limited self-healing powers we have. Still : not the point.
That bullshit you believe in, can NOT cure cancer.
>Drug companies have ZERO desire to help.
What utter crap.
Yes, they have. ONLY if the drugs are successful and save they are permitted to be prescribed, ONLY if they cure people will MDs prescribe that pill. And ONLY then can drug companies make money.
>They are publicly traded businesses with a fiduciary >obligation to shareholders. Read: sell more drugs, not cure >disease.
Don’t forget your tin-foil hat. Yes, drug companies want to make money. So what?
>The AMA Brainwashing Brotherhood (yes, research their >beginnings as a group designed from the beginning to
> squash natural cures) needs to open their eyes to the power
> of natural treatments (herbs, essential oils, chiropractic,
> acupuncture/pressure, reflexology, etc.)
ROFL. Reflexology, acupuncture, etc and all that bullshit nonsense have been scientifically researched and deemed useless. They DO NOT work. Full stop. They are just placebos. Nothing else.
On the other hand, there is an entire industry of those alternative snake-oil wannabes that wants to make big money by riding on the fear of dumb people and by selling them lies, fairy tales and sometimes a bridge.
No, I will not dodge to that alternative shit that endangers lives.
> and give the body a chance to do what it was designed to
> do: heal itself without invasive procedures.
Listen up, Kid : THAT WON’T CURE CANCER. Period.
If you believe that, and have cancer, you will die. Painfully. That’s a fact.
Uh just one correction. Hepatitis C now has an almost 80% cure rate. Cure as in completely gone forever. Amazing progress with new meda have been made. Modern medicine is based around research and a scientific process. It isn’t perfect but generally better than a non-evidence based mysticism based mumbo jumbo treatment system. The problem is many doctors don’t practice evidence based medicine either due to ignorance and vested interests or because the case is to rare or complex to have an adequate evidence base.
Who is claiming that Medicine is perfect? I don’t know of anyone who believes that doctors are infallable. However, you can bet that when I get sick I am going to see the guy who spent a decade in Medical school before the dude with acupuncture needles and chicken bones.
Save your medical opinions for those patients you directly treat. Don’t you just love these “Monday morning quarterbacks” who seem to have all the right answers! We miss you Steve.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a doctor step forward with the gall to say , “Oh that guy who died? That guy who everyone’s crying about? Oh yeah, I coulda saved his life.”
Sleaze.
Actually it was said about the death of princess Diana quite a bit. And rightly so. In the US our paramedics practice “scoop and run” meaning we rush them to the hospital as fast as possible. In Europe apparently they tried to stabilize her repeatedly even going so far as to pull over and stop the ambulance while in route to the hospital. But her injuries were so complex only a hospital could provide the services neccessary to save her. If she had been picked up using the US technique there is a good chance she could have been saved.
A lot of factors go into deciding how and what to access for end of life care. Steve Jobs fortunately had the economic opportunity to choose what he wanted. This hit whore shouldn’t be judging it and using it to attack alternative treatments.
The pancreas is a gland organ in the digestive and endocrine system. It is both an endocrine gland producing several important hormones as well as a digestive organ, secreting pancreatic juice containing digestive enzymes that assist the absorption of nutrients and the digestion in the small intestine. These enzymes help to further break down the carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids in the chyme.
With that background, I submit that Jobs, being the control freak he is, screwed up his pancreas in the first place, long before he doomed himself by wasting 9 months with “special alternative medicines and diets.”
From his official biographer Walter Isaacson’s article, “American Icon,” in Time Magazine (October 17, 2011):
“The unified field theory that ties together Jobs’ personality and products begins with his most salient trait, his intensity. It was evident even in high school. By then he had begun his lifelong experimentation with compulsive diets…” (bold emphasis mine)
Jobs thought he knew better than everyone else. That resulted in wonderful products. It also caused him to ravage his pancreas to the point of collapse. Even then, he still thought he knew better, and blew 9 crucial months doing God knows what else to his poor digestive system.
I believe that the very intensity and steadfast belief in himself that made him so great also resulted in his untimely death.
Diets and vegetarianism do not have to do anything with ways of medical treatment.
Despite being Buddhist, Jobs was very scientific-interested thinker, an early believer of Genetech works (since early 1980s), whose head he even invited to sit on the Board of Directors. He also hired biologist to run his marketing department (Philip Schiller).
So there is no real basis to believe that Jobs would all of sudden turned to shamanism, voodoo or whatever else ways to treat cancer. The gossip which this article discusses blatantly contradict to basic facts which Jobs himself described (long before this gossip article or messy inquires on his health, so there was no sense for him to lie about when he was diagnosed, the more so not in the conceptual Stanford speech in 2005).
I’m not following your reply. Are you disputing that Jobs spent nine or so months seeking alternative treatment before undergoing his Pancreaticoduodenectomy (Whipple procedure)?
I am not ‘disputing’ that, since this nonsensical gossip was never confirmed.
I explained that this gossip makes no sense from other points of view.
Okay. So, pretend he went straight to surgery after diagnosis.
Now, are you disputing that a lifelong obsession with compulsive diets can damage internal organs, including the pancreas?
Also, are you a doctor?
There is no information that Jobs ever practised any dire diets before having cancer (in fact, Jobs even had some amount of excessive weight by 2004). Also, there is no established connection between vegetarianism and whatever cancers.
So I am not sure why are asking these questions.
derss,
Again, from his official biographer Walter Isaacson’s article, “American Icon,” in Time Magazine (October 17, 2011):
“The unified field theory that ties together Jobs’ personality and products begins with his most salient trait, his intensity. It was evident even in high school. By then he had begun his lifelong experimentation with compulsive diets…” (bold emphasis mine)
@Oncologist: sorry, I omitted the word “right” in my previous reply, so the meaning of what I wrote was not exact:
There is no information that Jobs ever practised any dire diets right before having cancer (in fact, Jobs even had some amount of excessive weight by 2004). Also, there is no established connection between vegetarianism and whatever cancers.
So I am not sure why are asking these questions.
derss,
I’m not sure which part of “lifelong” is throwing you – or are you failing to realize that something Jobs did in his early 20’s, for example, could have compromised his pancreas later in life. It doesn’t have to be something he did right before his diagnosis. For example, people smoke in their 20’s, quit in their 40’s and still get lung cancer in their 60’s from what they did to themselves between 20-40 years of age.
@Oncologist: projecting some diet from decades ago to cancer it beyond any possible stretch of imagination. There is no data to even remotely establish any connection.
@oncologist…to put it mildly I think you are full of horseshit. You should well know that in general that people can be predisposed to the disease (as is well documented in the breast cancer field) as well as it just being the luck of the draw. Steve was just dealt a bad hand and this crap I am reading about ‘special diets’ causing it or as the other so-called expert ‘Ramzi’ saying that his delaying surgery caused it (when he never even saw his medical history) is also a bunch of crap.
God the American medical system needs an overhaul…..
Understood.
You should understand also that anyone undertaking a “lifelong experimentation with compulsive diets” is playing with fire and, yes, they can damage internal organs, including and especially the pancreas.
It might hurt to think Steve Jobs’ personality not only helped him and the world, but also hastened his death or even caused his condition, but it doesn’t change the facts (compulsive diets over a lifetime and delayed surgery after cancer diagnosis). My contention is no more implausible than blaming it on having been “dealt a bad hand” and just might be markedly closer to reality.
I am a doctor, and although that’s an interesting theory, there’s no way your diet will lead to pancreatic cancer, your contention is entirely implausible, and like the other commenter mentioned, steve was just dealt a bad hand
“There’s no way your diet will lead to pancreatic cancer.”
Proof that you’re not a doctor or, if you are, you’re a GP who’s not too up-to-date on cancer research.
@Oncologist
A couple of questions, if I may.
Are you a medical oncologist or a clinical oncologist?
Your recurring use of the phrase “compulsive diets” is
intriguing. To better understand your viewpoint, what is your understanding and interpretation of “compulsive diets”?
Also, could you please post links to “up-to-date on cancer research” that specifically discuss “compulsive diets”.
Thank you.
+1
If Jobs’s compulsion for fad diets and his preference for delaying surgery in favour for alternative ‘quack’ medicines is correct – it makes his death a form of suicide.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Ass-hat loon seeking publicity 🙁
Been wondering the same thing lately. I remember at the time him trying alternative remedies for several months – out of character for such a superintelligent person. Going mainstream was basically an admission the alternative treatments don’t work.
I am waiting for Cubert to comment on these guys……
He’s not finished with himself yet. Just wait a few more minutes. lol
Who says he tried quack (alternative “medicine”) treatment? What quack treatment did he try? This is all speculation. If somebody actually knows, it would be helpful, though. Too many otherwise intelligent people fall for the promises of witch doctors and their herbs and diets to “treat” cancer. Allopathic medicine isn’t perfect, but it works often. Witch doctors will tell you all about how medical doctors are just out for your money, and then turn around and charge thousands of dollars (cash only, please) for their worthless “treatments.” They prey on terminally ill people, selling them nothing but false hope.
I’m glad Steve did get medical treatment, and that he lived a few good years longer for it.
Then there are bloggers who claim that chemo and radiation killed Jobs and that he’d be alive today if only he’d used alternative methods blah blah. It is just grafting of various agendas and points of view onto a person’s suffering and it is equally possible all of these views are wrong.
Would have, could have, should have.
Everyone’s got the right answer in hindsight….. or with the limited info they have.
You don’t think he or his doctors covered every possible solution? There are more things than being just alive. It’s the quality of living as well. Sometimes these cures have numerous side effects and I can understand his want to seek out alternatives.
Yes, Ramzi Amri did not treat Jobs. But if what he wrote is true, that Jobs delayed surgery for nine months before resorting to surgery, that decision was against all that is known about pancreatic cancer. Jobs had a rare, milder form that normally responds well to surgery.
It was Jobs’ prerogative to try alternative medicine. At least he wasn’t doing what some religious nut cases do, where their children have a acute appendicitis and they pray and burn candles and dance around and fervently hope for a nice outcome. None of that prayer changes the odds that cute appendicitis is fatal in about 50 percent of the cases without surgery. With surgery, the mortality rate is less than 1 percent.
Alternative medicine has its place, but if a doctor says that traditional medical treatment can save your life and, left untreated, it nearly always fatal, it’s best to dispense with the “ooga booga”.
“By definition”, I begin
“Alternative Medicine”, I continue
“Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”
Tim Minchin (Storm)
Nice quote.
Here’s another one from Brian Dunning: “Westerners’ belief that Chinese have long relied on alternative medicine is due in part to being duped by book publishers.” See Skeptoid.com #259
For me, if it is true that Steve’s life was shortened because he rejected evidence-based medicine in favour of alternative remedies, then that is shocking and depressing news, and if any quacks misled him, I hope they will see the light of reason.
I haven’t heard from Steve’s personal physician- we don’t know anything for certain, and it’s wrong to speculate publicly- at this point.
@Killercat
“Whenever you get a cancer diagnosis, you should, you must get to the hospital immediately. Like the very next day, if not the same day. Everything else is like gambling with your life.”
I really do sympathize with the fear of a cancer diagnosis. However—good luck finding an oncologist who will see an outpatient “walk-in, same day appointment”. Read the article, then Google “prostate cancer”. Some cancers are VERY slow, with th elikelihood of dying from some other cause — such as a traffic accident due on the way to your healthcare facility. Please be calm. “Life” is a terminal condition.
I am working in a cancer clinic by chance as a medic professional. But not in the United States. I am sorry for your screwed up medicare. The US has really great research facilities and fantastic universities I absolutely admire, but the worst health care system of the entire industrial world. It’s simply dysfunctional.
Yes, there are slow growing cancer forms. That doesn’t mean you should wait. Cancer infiltrates and some spread (metastases). The quicker a malign cancer is removed, the better.
Bless you…it takes great strength and compassion to be face to face with these issues every day…bless you!
You think it is bad and slow now? Wait till you see how much worse it will be if Obamacare is instituted. A delay of a day will become weeks or months. Treestment quality will decline… It’s all bad, Soviet Russia here we come
I welcome Obamacare. In fact it is not even enough and unfortunately a washed-out, light version of the right thing he wanted to introduce but couldn’t due to the big business whore, called the Republicans. If not 99.99% have a medical insurance, you have failed as society. Yes, I am that radical.
Too much knee-jerk defending your hero around here, guys. The fact is, he should not have waited at all to have that surgery by trying unproven, unscientific diets. It’s not a guarantee, but it “LIKELY” shortened his life. Jobs’s “good” type of pancreatic cancer gives a patient an average life of 10 years after treatment. He did himself no favors in delaying, and that’s THE FACT.
The fact based on what? Some doctor’s biased speculation?
Idiot!
His life His choice. Who are we to judge.
True or not… How insensitive to throw this in the face of a grieving family. Just to say “I told you so”.. Shut up! His medical records are personal, and discussing this now, especially in such a public forum, serves no one accept the ego of a very insensitive jerk.
A whipple procedure is a significantly major procedure to have done. I do believe that Steve delayed his surgery to try alternative methods. Although he may have been given the all clear following the surgery, the fact is that given the low likelihood of metastases if this particular tumor is caught early, delaying surgery can lead to microscopic lymphocytic infiltration, something not readily seen grossly during surgery or by CT scan. Although most of the numbers are favorable for 5 (50-70% in one study and an overall 20-84% generalized) and 10 year survival rates (which Steve fell nicely into…), the odds of survival are greatly decreased if the tumor extends to the liver. The average survival time from metastases is 23 months on average. My presumption here is that the metastatic tumors are large enough to be picked up by CT scan, MRI or PET scan at the time of diagnosis.
I think it is pure speculation that Steve’s diet caused this issue. Veganism is not really known to cause oncogenic disease. I would put forth that his vegan lifestyle may have actually helped to prolong his life. But certainly the wait time may have been his biggest weakness (If that is indeed what occurred).
Remember, if he indeed had metastatic disease in 2004, then he would have to go on record as having been one of the longest survivors ever, far exceeding the 23 month time frame.
For those interested, you can look up more data for the layman here: http://www.pancan.org/section_facing_pancreatic_cancer/downloads/Islet_Cell_Fact_Sheet_050511.pdf
or look at some more detailed information here:
http://pathology.jhu.edu/pancreas/TreatmentEndocrine.php?area=tr
Hope this sheds a little light on the discussion. Steve’s loss is still a great one regardless of the cause. I really hope that we can keep this discussion a little more civil than what has transpired. He still has a family who will undoubtedly read some of these posts one day.
In science it is our duty to speculate and question, even if the dogma of the day is written in stone. Many worlds would never have been discovered if we still believed the world was flat; and having just completed a brilliant book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, we must always question when it comes to cancer so that we can find cures. Let’s just keep it civil.
The type of cancer he had was a death sentence, either way.
The dr who wrote this is a Harvard Medical Researcher, his findings are based on research. A researcher does not need ones medical records to offer an opinion, it’s based on RESEARCH. perhaps he could of lived a few more years more or not. I am surprised Jobs did not go to John Hopkins, which is the best hospital, Dana Farber, Mass General, Brigham & Woman’s or the Mayo Clinic is shocking, but why prolong the suffering is the moral question.
Steve went to Stanford Medical Center, one of the finest medical institutions in the country. Now, certainly for his rare form of cancer, his oncologist at Stanford probably consulted with other top specialists in the field all across the country. And, he may have gotten a 2nd opinion at any of those other fine facilities. We don’t know, though we might learn a little from his bio, but I’m doubtful.
Perhaps his doctor at Stanford consulted with the guy from the article, too?
I’m not sure how the system works – but I have a feeling that after a while, maybe his anonymized medical files were doing the rounds in specialist circles?
Sort of how iPhone parts leak out of Chinese factories and make rounds at case-makers?
In any case, he was likely as “easy” as a patient as he was as boss..
Commenting on Steve Jobs’ illness and treatment is reckless, not to mention distasteful. As has been stated, he never treated Steve and doesn’t know the options and choices for treatment.
This guy could have just said something like, “This reminds us how deadly cancer is. It’s important to take care of your health, work with you doctors, and start treatment as soon as possible.”
Buddhism is not related to nontraditional medicine and should not have been mentioned.