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The world lost a true visionary yesterday with the passing of Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple. I remember back in the late 80’s when I was a young computer programmer/designer fresh out of grad school using the (Apple) MacIntosh computer for the very first time.
The MacIntosh user interface was so intuitive and such a leap ahead of the predominant Microsoft DOS operating system (remember? type commands at the green screen prompt) that I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
This new and emerging user interface in the 1980s that is taken for granted today rocketed the task of computer design light years ahead and allowed the development of computer systems to at last be something users could be involved in and easily understand.
There is no doubt that Steve Jobs’ passing at 56 years old was premature. He had much more to contribute to the world and I for one feel the world has been cheated now that he is gone.
Pictures of him in his final days showed a frail, shockingly thin frame consistent with a person who had undergone chemotherapy treatments for cancer.
While every single detail of Mr. Jobs’ cancer treatments over the years are not publicly known, one can’t help but wonder if his chemotherapy and radiation treatments contributed to his demise.
Just a few weeks ago, Kara Kennedy, daughter of the late Senator Edward Kennedy died at age 51 from a heart attack. Her brother, Patrick Kennedy said that her many years of chemotherapy to treat lung cancer took a severe toll on her health and weakened her physically to the point where “her heart just gave out.”
Is Conventional Treatment for Cancer Worse Than the Disease?
It seems that chemotherapy/radiation treatments causing death rather than preserving life are becoming more common.
Radiation in particular ups the risk of heart problems in women undergoing conventional treatment for breast cancer. The May 2000 issue of The Lancet reported that women who had undergone radiation for breast cancer increased their odds of dying from other causes, usually heart related, by 21% compared with women who had not undergone radiation with the 20 year survival rate for breast cancer improving by only 1%.
Does that seem worth it to you? It sure doesn’t to me.
Chemotherapy is another conventional treatment for cancer that seems to hasten people’s death. The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death in the UK reported that its review of 600 cancer patients who died within 30 days of treatment revealed that over one quarter had in fact been killed by the chemo and not cancer.
The extreme toxicity of chemo treatments is what causes the rapid demise, usually infections such as the very serious neutropenic sepsis.
In the case of Mr. Jobs, this appears to be what happened. According to reports from multiple sources, he had received chemotherapy treatments in recent months at the Stanford Cancer Center in Palo Alto California and his devastating physical deterioration from these treatments almost certainly contributed to his quick passing.
Would You Ever Use Chemo or Radiation to Treat Cancer?
If you received a cancer diagnosis, would you ever agree to chemotherapy or radiation treatments or would you explore nontoxic alternative therapies?
I, for one, would not consider conventional cancer treatment as such an approach to disease seems more than a little misguided. How can use of toxic chemicals and/or radiation possibly be beneficial when both of these treatments actually have been shown to cause cancer in the long run?
It seems that a more holistic approach to cancer would be wiser than the slash and burn approach of conventional cancer treatments.
In his article A Holistic Approach To Cancer, Dr. Tom Cowan MD writes:
“… the job of the doctor is to distinguish between the therapy and the illness. What I mean by that is if you get a splinter in your finger, and then your body makes pus to get the splinter out, is the pus the therapy or the disease? We know that pus indicates infection and the presence of microorganisms, and we learned in medical school that doctors should kill the pus. But I don’t think it is that far of a stretch to see that if you have a splinter in your finger, the pus is the therapy for the splinter. If you don’t take the splinter out, the pus will do it for you. If you mistakenly think that the pus is the disease and you destroy the pus, the splinter will stay and your body will attempt this process again. If you destroy the pus again, your body might repeat this process three or four more times. Then you have a chronic infection as the body keeps trying to remove the splinter. Eventually it will either succeed, or it will encapsulate the splinter, which is a tumor, a new growth. It is not a cancerous tumor but a benign cystic tumor of the splinter. The understanding that the pus is the therapy allows you to predict what is going to happen in the future.
Now think of this example. Joe Bloke is a smoker. In other words, he puts a bunch of splinters in his lungs every day. Twice a year Joe gets cough, fever, mucus–all to get the splinters out of his lungs. I prefer to say “cough, fever, mucus” rather than “bronchitis” because the word “bronchitis” separates you from the reality of the situation. His body is producing an inflammatory response–it is making a mucus-pus-fever response to cleanse his lungs of splinters. If Joe goes to a doctor who makes the mistake of thinking that the response is the problem, he will give drugs to stop the bronchitis–which is actually the medicine. So Joe will be left with the splinters. That scenario will happen twice a year for thirty years and then Joe has a big bag of splinters in his lungs, and we call that lung cancer.”
Holistic approaches to cancer help resolve whatever caused the cancer in the first place. Conventional chemo/radiation treat only the “pus” of the cancer as described by Dr. Cowan.
Stopping cancer symptoms by “killing” the cancer cells with chemo or radiation is not in any way a cure as Mr. Jobs tragically discovered in his long running quest to regain his health.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist.com
Source: Doctors Rely on Chemo Too Much
I heard in the news he was vegetarian!
We wouldn’t use conventional treatments either, for cancer or much of anything else, for the reasons Dr. Cowan explains. I love his quote there, I think it is the perfect way to explain why we believe what we do about healing the body. Whenever we are faced with any health crisis, we approach it to look for the underlying cause and help the body to heal itself. Toxic chemicals are not the answer to true healing.
To make it 8 years with pancreatic cancer is rare. What ever he did worked… As long as he and his family were happy with his quality if life
When my husband was a teenager, his dad diet of pancreatic cancer, the same one that Steve Jobs (though Steve did have a rare type one). His dad did not begin treating it fast enough, to the dismay of his wife who kept telling him to go see a doctor when he started feeling bad and was not sure what was wrong.
I think it all depends on the disease and what stage…But my hope for the future is for Integrative Medicine – where conventional and alternative therapies come together to
treat illnesses.
Going onto a raw vegan diet–does more (juice fasting & smoothies) for getting rid of cancers, than chemo ever will. Sad to say. But the reason we talk so much chemo–is cause so many companies can make money off of it. They can’t make money off of juice fasting, unless they sell juicers. So no chemo for me either. I’m keeping cancer at bay with smoothies & juices in addition to fresh fruits & veggies!
Not true. I just read a bio on Steve Jobs and here’s a quote directly from the article:
“Jobs was also a pescetarian who didn’t consume most animal products, and didn’t eat meat other than fish. A strong believer in Eastern medicine, he sought to treat his own cancer through alternative approaches and specialized diets before reluctantly seeking his first surgery for a cancerous tumor in 2004.”
So, no animal foods means mostly veggies and fruits as his basic food source, right? Um-hmm.
And I don’t agree with your idea of juicing either. In my experience juicing instead of just eating the whole fruit just creates a sugary version of the real thing.
The other information from the bio shows he was sort of a crook on top of everything else.
=8-0
Here’s the link to the article where I read the above information:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/8-things-didn-t-know-life-steve-jobs-172130955.html
The thing is, juicing and green smoothies actually has helped cure people from cancer. I think Weston Price Foundation interviewed someone that cured themselves with vitamin d and use of animal products. I think there needs to be a broader discussion regarding the issue instead of being distracted by what works. It seems to me every individual is different. I don’t think going raw is meant to be a permanent thing but if it cures your cancer what’s wrong with that? We don’t know what kind of diet he had exactly. I mean oreos are vegan, sugar is vegan, processed soy is vegetarian, etc. We need more help in determining which natural cures work best for certain types of people.
I read the bio too. But the shareholders were pushing for chemotherapy as this is what is known en masse to do when one has cancer. When you’re one of the world’s top leaders in business, you are going to have pressure to “do something about it” when you have cancer, and the company/shareholders know they need to keep business and profits running. Imagine his position. That’s more pressure than any of us could imagine. I would have hated to have been in Steve’s shoes dealing with the pressure from all of this. By the way – may he rest in peace.
I have looked into juicing, raw foods, etc. Still researching it.
No, animal protein doesn’t mean mostly veggies and fruits. One can eat all kinds of things like rice, nuts, breads, beans, etc. Which isn’t good if that’s most of what one eats. I has to be balanced.
Just curious, in your juicing experience, how does juicing create “a sugary version of the real thing” (unless you add sugar)?
Not health-related, but by “sort of a crook” if you mean “#3. Fibbed to his Apple co-founder about a job at Atari” – well Wozniak wouldn’t have got anything if it wasn’t for Steve’s idea in the first place. Steve gave Wozniak that money for his help.
And good luck to you. Raw vegan may feel superior and clean but it lack some of the most important stuff the body needs, especially when fighting cancer. I have seen healthy people’s health deteriorate on a raw vegan diet.
I think it’s very easy to second-guess cancer treatment when you have not walked in the patient’s shoes. None of us can definitively say what we would or would not choose unless and until we have the cancer diagnosis. I believe all treatment protocols should be investigated and the most appropriate one chosen for the patient given the type of cancer, degree of spread, overall health of the patient, and cure rate. Nutritional support is key as well, and alternative treatments should also be considered.
I say all of this as a cancer survivor. I had a stage one squamous cell carcinoma removed from my tongue this past March. Luckily, the entire tumor was removed and I require no further treatment. However, had I required additional treatment, I would have carefully considered all options rather than summarily dismissing any of them.
Thank you.
Amen!
The Weston A. Price Foundation recommends a lumpectomy only with no chemo/radiation if a woman has breast cancer. I can’t seem to find the article which states this though otherwise I would post the link.
no chemo for me
I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday. You’d think someone like him, with unlimited resources, would seek out a more holistic treatment, since cost is no object. But, I guess with his technological background, I would imagine that he viewed modern medicine the same way – advanced and the ‘best’. He might have died anyways, regardless of which type of treatment he chose, but maybe not – at the very least, he would’ve suffered less at the end.
The effects of chemo and radiation are just horrible. And they use percentages to scare people into choosing them, even when surgery has rid them of their cancer. I have an aunt who had breast cancer and they got it out 100% with the surgery. Then they wanted her to do chemo and radiation – they used all these stats and % to show how chemo and radiation will ‘improve’ her chances of it not recurring. But they don’t tell you the % of people who get cancer or other diseases from the chemo/radiation. It’s irresponsible – they scare people into toxic treatments, without giving them all the facts. At least let people know what they’re getting into when they chose chemo and radiation, so they are fully aware of what they’re choosing.
I agree. Surgery to remove the cancer if possible seems logical. Chemo/radiation afterwards when they obviously got it all seems pointless and even foolish given the dangers of these treatments and how horribly they make you suffer.
No doctor can guarantee that they have removed 100% of the cancer with surgery. I know that’s what we all hear in the movies but it’s not reality. They use microscopes to see if there is any cancer left in the margins of the tissue that’s been surgically removed, but the microscopes are only so powerful. The “100%” is based on what they can see under the microscope. There may in fact still be cancer cells in the tissue they are looking at but it’s not detectable. In fact, since some cancers are very slow growing, there may in fact be cancer cells all throughout the persons body but it’s not detectable with scans. I believe that a lot of illnesses can be helped with natural remedies and alternative therapies. Yet when I was faced with a cancer diagnosis and a newly adopted baby, as the sole parent, I could not in good conscience refuse the standard medical treatment. I did it all – surgeries, including mastectomies and oopherectomy, chemo, radiation, and hormone therapy. I also radically changed my diet and made other lifestyle changes. Sadly, we know so little about cancer despite all the research and research dollars. My strategy – cover all your bases. It’s easy to say no to western medical treatments when you don’t actually have cancer. I also know that people really do suffer from chemo and radiation. A coworker lost his 3 year old daughter to infection after chemo for a “highly curable luekemia”. Yet another coworker’s soon is thriving at 11 years old after undergoing the very same tretments at age 1-3 years. So we really don’t know and can’t predict who will be helped or hurt by the treatments. Its not so black and white.
Great question!