Should Steve Jobs Still Be Alive?

[HuckleB]

Possibly...

A Lesson in Treating Illness

http://skeptoid.com/blog/2011/10/05/a-lesson-in-treating-illness/

"...

Seven or eight years ago, the news broke that Steve Jobs had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but considering it a private matter, he delayed in informing Apple’s board, and Apple’s board delayed in informing the shareholders. So what. The only delay that really mattered was that Steve, it turned out, had been treating his pancreatic cancer with a special diet and other alternative therapies, prescribed by his naturopath. (I can’t find the original source for this, so I’m striking the statement that his self-treatment by diet had beed recommended by a naturopath.)

Most pancreatic cancers are aggressive and always terminal, but Steve was lucky (if you can call it that) and had a rare form called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which is actually quite treatable with excellent survival rates — if caught soon enough. The median survival is about a decade, but it depends on how soon it’s removed surgically. Steve caught his very early, and should have expected to survive much longer than a decade. Unfortunately Steve relied on a diet instead of early surgery. There is no evidence that diet has any effect on islet cell carcinoma. As he dieted for nine months, the tumor progressed, and took him from the high end to the low end of the survival rate.

Why did he do this? Well, outsiders like us can’t know; but many who avoid medical treatment in favor of unproven alternatives do so because they’ve been given bad information, without the tools or expertise to discriminate good from bad. Steve was exposed to such bad information, as are we all.

Eventually it became clear to all involved that his alternative therapy wasn’t working, and from then on, by all accounts, Steve aggressively threw money at the best that medical science could offer. But it was too late. He had a Whipple procedure. He had a liver transplant. And then he died, all too young.

..."


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Whenever someone asks, "What's the harm" with woo? Well...

[Divine Discontent]

1. can only believe he had top medical advice, and there's no way of knowing what would have happened

if he had earlier surgery. My only question to him weeks back would have been would he have had earlier surgery knowing what he eventually knew after years of survival... otherwise, it's just a guessing game. It's a reminder if anything to be loving to others...


http://www.zazzle.com/republicans_2012_keeping_millions_out_of_work_bumper_sticker-128659602907896843?rf=238107662556833486

[HuckleB]

2. We should always be loving of others.

But perhaps we should also be much more aware of snake oil, and start to ponder why we let it permeate our health care system.

[pitohui]

4. are you for real?

he must be one of the longest living pancreatic cancer patients that ever lived, money trumps everything and his money bought years of life

you do understand that "real" people w./ pancreatic cancer are dead in 3 months?

no i really don't give a fuck that a billionaire lived 9 years w. pancreatic cancer when everyone else i've known has been told expect to be dead in 6 weeks

[MattBaggins]

5. ummm there's pancreatic cancer and then there's pancreatic cancer

they are not all the same as could be easily discerned by reading the op.

[dkf]

7. If you read the op, he didn't have the common one that kills people fast.

Geez.

[unkachuck]

9. he nust....

....have had the uncommon one that responded well to money....

[joshcryer]

11. To be fair, though, I am looking at data, and it wasn't until 2007 that a study was found...

...that showed that survival rate for neuroendocrine pancreatic tumors is increased considerably by "aggressive surgery."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1876988/

One guy lived 14 years after getting surgery.

It's possible that the medical field didn't know this and Jobs wasn't informed of this possibility. He saw that the Whipple procedure had a 95% survival rate (along with other complications) and just decided to do something else to hopefully stem the tide.

[joshcryer]

10. Median for this type of cancer is 5 years, he lived 2 years beyond it. His money...

...would've taken him far beyond it if he had the proper treatment.

[Divine Discontent]

32. yes, for realzzzz! he didn't have the common quick-killing kind, but instead the long term type and

if you read the OP, you'd see the OP was saying would he have lived decades longer if he had surgery when they found the problem.

[Iwasthere]

31. http://Chrisbeatcancer.com

Doctors must tow the line or else risk loss of $$ or even their practice. The cancer machine in this country is bankrupting families. I have lost many friends and family. Chemo kills. There are few cancer that respond well to chemo. Poisoning the body and cutting out tumors... old school technology from 100 years ago, shouldn't we better than that by now? Yes, diet can even turn around stage 4 cancer, there are cures. Prove it you ask, here: http://chrisbeatcancer.com

[HuckleB]

37. Hogwash.

Everyone has lost people to cancer. Many still have loved ones here because of chemo.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/chemotherapy-doesnt-work/

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/chemotherapy-versus-death-from-cancer/

[Ineeda]

3. I'm a firm believer in

allowing people to make up their own minds about the kinds of treatment, or lack thereof, that they decide to pursue. I've had several loved ones succumb to pressure to have 'traditional' treatment, with devastating, heartbreaking results, and which did not prolong their lives. I don't judge someone for making such a decision, but I do judge the people applying the pressure.

[MattBaggins]

6. making up your own mind is a nice concept

but does it include giving snake oil salesmen the right to lie and mislead?

[HuckleB]

14. +1

If it does, why do we arrest anyone for fraud?

[Ineeda]

15. Sometimes the "real" doctors are just as bad.

I'll give you an example. My best friend was diagnosed with a particularly virulent brain tumor on her left temporal lobe. There was absolutely no chance of survival. For a year she was subjected to radiation, chemo, and surgery that removed a large chunk of brain. All of these 'treatments' were horrendous, especially, of course, the surgery. She died within a year of diagnosis. She would have died a couple of months earlier, perhaps, with no 'treatment'. The doctors offered these options and her husband insisted on her going along. He was pressuring her to have even more of her brain removed (suggested by doctors), regardless of the effect, to prolong her life even a minute more. I had known her and loved her since we were kindergarteners and we had had many conversations on this type of situation almost all our lives. She, if she hadn't been terrified and vulnerable, would never had subjected herself to such a futile ordeal.

[HuckleB]

16. Anecdotes are fine, but they're fairly meaningless, especially on the Internet.

We have regulations and expectations for real doctors. They can and are often held accountable.

Naturopaths tend to get a free ride, and push therapies that have no justification. That's snake oil. It costs money and lives, and it's time stop letting people get away with a scam scot free.

[MattBaggins]

18. I took an evening course in Sociology with an idiot right wing professor

who actually claimed that homeopathy was a legitimate alternative medicine.

Sociology... I thought the ology part would indicate at least a rudimentary grasp of, I don't know, science.

[HuckleB]

19. Well, I suspect that the greater the education degree accomplished...

... the more likely one falls for homeopathy.

It's a sad state of affairs.

[MattBaggins]

17. Very sad story with valid critcism of medical practices

however it does not excuse or justify outright quackery.

[Ineeda]

20. I agree, But my point was that quackery can be applicable to

the medical "industry" in general, too. As long as someone is footing the bill, they both sell false hope. IMO, that's worse than false treatment.

[HuckleB]

27. It's not the same.

Not by a long shot.

[Hippo_Tron]

30. Sounds like her husband is to blame more than the doctors

Did the doctors give them an accurate prognosis of what they could expect from the treatments or did they promise something that wasn't true?

Let me add that I don't want to make it sound as though I think your friend's husband is a bad person. The potential to lose a loved one makes us do irrational things. I'm not sure if I would be able to do any better in his situation.

[HuckleB]

12. I judge a society that allows snake oil to prosper.

[joshcryer]

8. Interesting, I didn't know this. I did some more digging, and here's an more in depth article:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/03/woo_for_cancer_say_it_aint_so_steve.php

That's just sad, really.

[HuckleB]

13. Thanks for the link.

I hadn't seen that piece yet.

Yes, it's very sad.

[joshcryer]

23. It's also from 2008, so it's weird that I never heard about it.

[Overseas]

21. The deep fear engendered by the great expense of American privatized medicine has permeated

the way we think about such things to such a degree that even he who could have had the tumor removed and then embarked on the best diet to defeat the remaining cancerous cells, was driven to try the last resort us uninsured folks cling to for hope. Hope, for those of us who just can't bring ourselves to bankrupt our families with the full course of treatment, painted heroically for us too poor to do all the best available, a vigilant yet jubilant vegan diet, has even affected the chances of Those Who Can Afford It All.

Most of us want our taxes to be used for Medicare for All, not private profit. We'd like to see medicine more publicly financed and researched. There's lots of profit to be made from drugs that actually work. But making profit the prime motivator has worked to our detriment. We want that low overhead of Medicare as a foundation.

And we've created a society that will be full of patients for years to come. Deep fried chicken nuggets seem to be children's favorite snacks. Diabetes is accelerating thanks to years of more and more advertising of tantalizing easy foods. So there is ample profit to be made. We would hope that would be enough.

50 million people or so cannot afford to visit a doctor. Millions of our fellow citizens have gone bankrupt from medical expenses. That makes formal medical care in the USA quite intimidating.

So we do our best with Hail Marys. And some people who start soon enough can clear things up sometimes. That's the hope we cling to. And some younger folks are doing the whole package-- eating fresh vegan food and bicycling to work. Others of us are just trying to eat more greens and walk more and cook more.

Sorry to hear the details of Steve Jobs' struggle with cancer. It is a great pity that the cruelty of our profit-centered medical system, which has driven so many of us to ferocious hope that vegan dieting can clean out our system and save us without bankrupting our families, has colored the choices of one of our wealthiest, most respected visionaries.

[Nye Bevan]

22. Yeah, the homeopathic/alternative medicine crap often ends badly.

And I have never even heard the word "naturopath".

For me it would be good old-fashioned chemo, radiation, and/or surgery. ASAP.

[uppityperson]

24. k&r, having read the article, if he'd treated with surgery rather than diet?

Difficult to say for any specific case, but overall, yes.

[Historic NY]

25. Money can't always buy health..........

[HuckleB]

26. No, but if you had seen Jobs' speech at Stanford in 2005...

... he describes how the MDs figured out that this cancer was curable via surgery, and, in fact, how the doc had tears in his eyes when he figured what kind of cancer it was, you'd wonder why Jobs would go with an unproven diet "cure" for nine months before having the surgery.

I know we're all susceptible to this kind of stuff, especially if we, as a society, let such scams be given free reign.

[Historic NY]

28. Snake oil always seems easier.....we hope there is another painless way....

I know.

[Art_from_Ark]

35. According to the article, it's not "curable"

"The median survival is about a decade, but it depends on how soon it’s removed surgically."

So the median survival rate is "about a decade". Mr. Jobs lived at least 8 years after learning about the cancer. So he was just a couple of years or so below the median survival rate.

[HuckleB]

38. Yes, that's all noted.

The article also notes that his prognosis went down because he waited nine months for the surgery.

[slipslidingaway]

29. knr - worthy of discussion, a family member had this type of tumor removed...

when it was discovered about 4 years ago at the age of 79.

[HuckleB]

39. Thanks.

[madinmaryland]

33. Un-reccing and alerting for insensitivity. eom

[Spider Jerusalem]

34. Alerting for insensitivity?

Insensitivity to whom? Steve Jobs is dead, he doesn't care. And the OP is quite right about the dangers and stupidity of "alternative" treatments.

[HuckleB]

36. Say what?

If this is insensitive, then 99.9 percent of all posts at DU qualify as insensitive.