4 ms·

Pancreatic cancer could be genetic but we basically don’t know what causes it. The diet theory is a bit speculative imo

by grugagag 6y ago

29athrowaway 6y ago
Steve Jobs' diet and eating habits were extremely unusual and we simply do not know if they were viable or not.
- ampdepolymerase 6y ago
  Only fasting currently has any scientific support as a method to inhibit cancer growth. https://osher.ucsf.edu/patient-care/integrative-medicine-resources/cancer-and-nutrition/faq/cancer-and-fasting-calorie-restriction https://osher.ucsf.edu/patient-care/integrative-medicine-res...
sswezey 6y ago
Jobs attempted to defeat his cancer initially through diet alone. His cancer was operable and potentially curable, but he wasted too much time chasing fringe diets and it cost him his life: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-jobs-cancer-treatment-regrets/#7dae60797d2e https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-j...
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  So many experts seem to believe they are experts in everything instead of just their subject areas.
  - shrimpx 6y ago
    I don’t think he believed himself to be a master of everything but I get the clear impression he was leaning into an eastern/Indian spiritual tradition and likely even believed himself to be spiritually enlightened or on the cusp of enlightenment. So he thought he could heal himself, and possibly didn’t mind dying. After all, his last words were “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!”
- ignoramous 6y ago
  > His cancer was operable and potentially curable... His absence is such a loss to the tech industry that this is hard to digest, even after a decade.
52-6F-62 6y ago
I was just about to mention— I was in hospital recently for acute necrotizing pancreatitis (not fun, it will be a long time healing, if ever—fingers crossed). I have to stick to a low- to non- fat diet (~ 30g or less a day) and occasionally have to skip eating altogether for half a day to several days if I'm feeling discomfort or pain. In hospital I wasn't allowed to eat anything for days. Just some water or fruit juice and, thankfully, hydromorphone. Trying diets isn't very surprising. Even pancreatitis seems to vary in what diet will work for people. It sounds like some have to avoid fibre, others need more fibre. Some can go back to eating fats without straining the pancreas and some can't go near any. It's awful, especially because of how unpredictable and difficult the pancreas can be. It's not totally out-there to just try things related to diet as a last ditch attempt, if you ask me—but it's also not based on clinically-proven science either. (Except for fats and alcohol in the case of pancreatitis). Further, there is a dearth of layman information and community for pancreatic illnesses which can be disheartening and probably inspire just trying anything. But during my experience everything I've heard about pancreatic cancer is that it's essentially a death sentence—and a horrible one. (Cursory look at the US National Cancer Institute—relative survival rate after 5 years is about 10%)
- mft_ 6y ago
  Different beasts. Trying a diet treatment for potentially-curative pancreatic cancer is surprising - as it’s effectively suicidal. Pancreatic cancer is curable if it’s caught soon enough. (And I seem to recall that Jobs’ disease was thought to be atypical in some positive way, although details were obviously limited.) The problem is that due to the anatomy of the region, the disease is often advanced before symptoms are noticed, or noticed and thoroughly investigated.
  - 52-6F-62 6y ago
    I'm not saying he was right to experiment with diet. I was just saying it's hardly surprising given what we do know about pancreatic treatments and the dearth of public and accessible information. Much of the information out there is either garbage or medical research papers. Most information on any pancreatic illness involves diet/digestion and potential surgery. This stuff has been on my radar because unfortunately severe cases of pancreatitis can precede chronic conditions[0], cysts, tumours, and potentially even pancreatic cancer. Jobs seems to have had a liver transplant. That says a couple of things. If the cancer had spread to his liver his chances were not good. His cancer was of the islet cells. Islet cells are the part of the pancreas that regulate blood sugar levels. So immediately he was staring down diabetes with surgery and removal of a large portion of them. There are surgeries (we've looked at them as possible futures) to transplant islet cells to the liver in order to try and avoid becoming diabetic if part or all of the pancreas has to be removed. So this is a completely uneducated guess and only speculation, but if he was looking into islet cell transplants[1] prior to pancreatic head removal then he may have wanted a healthy liver first. Information relating to those details hasn't been made public to my knowledge. Most of the information surrounding his health seems as if it was measured in its releases. Also that he had a Whipple procedure it sounds like he was also having more traditional treatments.[2] Diet is also a part of treatment and symptom management and, from personal experience, the diet is pretty well the same as that for pancreatitis.[3] Being that he lived 7 years after what is publicly known to be his diagnosis, he beat the average by a couple of years. That puts him in the 90th percentile of all pancreatic cancer deaths (at least according to the present figures I mentioned before which don't differentiate between types of pancreatic cancer). [0] https://pancreasfoundation.org/patient-information/pancreatic-cancer/pancreatic-cancer-risks-and-symptoms/ https://pancreasfoundation.org/patient-information/pancreati... [1] https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/insulin-medicines-treatments/pancreatic-islet-transplantation https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overvi... [2] https://pancreasfoundation.org/patient-information/pancreatic-cancer/treatment-of-pancreatic-cancer/ https://pancreasfoundation.org/patient-information/pancreati... [3] https://pancreaticcancercanada.ca/diet-nutrition/ https://pancreaticcancercanada.ca/diet-nutrition/

Pancreatic cancer could be genetic but we basically don’t know what causes it. The diet theory is a bit speculative imo

29athrowaway 6y ago

Steve Jobs' diet and eating habits were extremely unusual and we simply do not know if they were viable or not.

ampdepolymerase 6y ago
Only fasting currently has any scientific support as a method to inhibit cancer growth. https://osher.ucsf.edu/patient-care/integrative-medicine-resources/cancer-and-nutrition/faq/cancer-and-fasting-calorie-restriction https://osher.ucsf.edu/patient-care/integrative-medicine-res...

sswezey 6y ago

Jobs attempted to defeat his cancer initially through diet alone. His cancer was operable and potentially curable, but he wasted too much time chasing fringe diets and it cost him his life: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-jobs-cancer-treatment-regrets/#7dae60797d2e https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-j...

alasdair_ 6y ago
So many experts seem to believe they are experts in everything instead of just their subject areas.
- shrimpx 6y ago
  I don’t think he believed himself to be a master of everything but I get the clear impression he was leaning into an eastern/Indian spiritual tradition and likely even believed himself to be spiritually enlightened or on the cusp of enlightenment. So he thought he could heal himself, and possibly didn’t mind dying. After all, his last words were “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!”
ignoramous 6y ago
> His cancer was operable and potentially curable... His absence is such a loss to the tech industry that this is hard to digest, even after a decade.

52-6F-62 6y ago

I was just about to mention— I was in hospital recently for acute necrotizing pancreatitis (not fun, it will be a long time healing, if ever—fingers crossed). I have to stick to a low- to non- fat diet (~ 30g or less a day) and occasionally have to skip eating altogether for half a day to several days if I'm feeling discomfort or pain. In hospital I wasn't allowed to eat anything for days. Just some water or fruit juice and, thankfully, hydromorphone. Trying diets isn't very surprising. Even pancreatitis seems to vary in what diet will work for people. It sounds like some have to avoid fibre, others need more fibre. Some can go back to eating fats without straining the pancreas and some can't go near any. It's awful, especially because of how unpredictable and difficult the pancreas can be. It's not totally out-there to just try things related to diet as a last ditch attempt, if you ask me—but it's also not based on clinically-proven science either. (Except for fats and alcohol in the case of pancreatitis). Further, there is a dearth of layman information and community for pancreatic illnesses which can be disheartening and probably inspire just trying anything. But during my experience everything I've heard about pancreatic cancer is that it's essentially a death sentence—and a horrible one. (Cursory look at the US National Cancer Institute—relative survival rate after 5 years is about 10%)

mft_ 6y ago
Different beasts. Trying a diet treatment for potentially-curative pancreatic cancer is surprising - as it’s effectively suicidal. Pancreatic cancer is curable if it’s caught soon enough. (And I seem to recall that Jobs’ disease was thought to be atypical in some positive way, although details were obviously limited.) The problem is that due to the anatomy of the region, the disease is often advanced before symptoms are noticed, or noticed and thoroughly investigated.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  I'm not saying he was right to experiment with diet. I was just saying it's hardly surprising given what we do know about pancreatic treatments and the dearth of public and accessible information. Much of the information out there is either garbage or medical research papers. Most information on any pancreatic illness involves diet/digestion and potential surgery. This stuff has been on my radar because unfortunately severe cases of pancreatitis can precede chronic conditions[0], cysts, tumours, and potentially even pancreatic cancer. Jobs seems to have had a liver transplant. That says a couple of things. If the cancer had spread to his liver his chances were not good. His cancer was of the islet cells. Islet cells are the part of the pancreas that regulate blood sugar levels. So immediately he was staring down diabetes with surgery and removal of a large portion of them. There are surgeries (we've looked at them as possible futures) to transplant islet cells to the liver in order to try and avoid becoming diabetic if part or all of the pancreas has to be removed. So this is a completely uneducated guess and only speculation, but if he was looking into islet cell transplants[1] prior to pancreatic head removal then he may have wanted a healthy liver first. Information relating to those details hasn't been made public to my knowledge. Most of the information surrounding his health seems as if it was measured in its releases. Also that he had a Whipple procedure it sounds like he was also having more traditional treatments.[2] Diet is also a part of treatment and symptom management and, from personal experience, the diet is pretty well the same as that for pancreatitis.[3] Being that he lived 7 years after what is publicly known to be his diagnosis, he beat the average by a couple of years. That puts him in the 90th percentile of all pancreatic cancer deaths (at least according to the present figures I mentioned before which don't differentiate between types of pancreatic cancer). [0] https://pancreasfoundation.org/patient-information/pancreatic-cancer/pancreatic-cancer-risks-and-symptoms/ https://pancreasfoundation.org/patient-information/pancreati... [1] https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/insulin-medicines-treatments/pancreatic-islet-transplantation https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overvi... [2] https://pancreasfoundation.org/patient-information/pancreatic-cancer/treatment-of-pancreatic-cancer/ https://pancreasfoundation.org/patient-information/pancreati... [3] https://pancreaticcancercanada.ca/diet-nutrition/ https://pancreaticcancercanada.ca/diet-nutrition/