Note that it really depends on the type of the pancreatic cancer. While pancreatic adenocarcinomas are some of the worst cancers out there (overall 5y survival of 8%), others like pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours have a fairly good prognosis. Famously, Steve Jobs sought alternative medicine solutions to the latter, which was probably misguided.
I come from a long line of clinical/medical folks in my family - and me on the tech side of medicine...
That said the following is me talking out my ass, but I have followed a very few number of pancreatic cases - jobs being one... and there is one anecdotal that I would hope people closer to such cases can chime into ; how much wine did these people drink (jobs was a prolific wine drinker)
Im wondering if sulfates from wine are a major player.
Jobs famously didn't drink much alcohol; he was way more into exotic fruit juices and such. Where did you get the idea he did? And what's with the oddly narrow "must be the sulfates, in wine specifically". Why not tannins? Polyphenols? Organic acids? We already know alcohol contributes to a variety of cancers...what compelling evidence is there that sulfate need be involved?
Tannins (and sulfates) are found in all sorts of food. But it's way easier to take the intellectual shortcut and say "it's probably X", instead of "it's probably really complicated and there are a number of factors involved". Some people want simple answers, no matter how complicated the problem is, or how wrong the answer is.
> Im wondering if sulfates from wine are a major player.
I work in healthcare in one of the wine capitals of the world, Napa County, CA.
We do not have a higher rate of pancreatic cancer than anywhere else. It is average. If sulfates from wine were a factor, it is quite likely that we would have seen a higher rate of pancreatic cancer here.
If they were a major player it wouldn’t be so subtle, it would be an industry wide problem. Alcohol causes pancreatic cancer for sure, but sulfites specifically? I’d beed a lot of evidence to believe that.
Sure, but that shouldnt preclude looking into it...
As you stated "*I need a lot of evidence*" - which is exactly what I am asking for. "Moar evidance"
And sulfates may not be the right metric...
So if we can fully identify dietary commonalities of pancreatic cancer patients, then we can get a little farther down this path to understanding...
What would be the most amazing use of "AI" would be to have a biological model of a pure human body (as far as nutrients and blah blah are concerned) - then cycle through feeding that biology various substances and seeing how it propogates through the system)
There are a lot of conspiracy theories about AIDS, and in the case like the death of Steve Jobs I guess this sort of rumor is bolstered by the fact that a lot of people hid their diagnosis due to stigma. Jobs was famously very focused on image. But I think most of that stigma was gone by 2010.
The stigma is most definitely not gone with the exception of the gay community, and maybe younger folks. If Jobs had AIDS and hid it, it wouldn't be a shock, but I think it would be a contributing factor to disinformation as most people believe the pancreatic cancer happened on its own and was exacerbated by his alternate treatments.
Well the other thing is, if he got a positive test in 2006, he'd be on anti-retrovirals and wouldn't have died of it. He had money and access to good doctors. It's rare for someone like him to die of AIDS complications.
