Why Did Steve Jobs Die -McDougall Newsletter_ 11 2011 — drmcdougall_com.pdf - AntyRak

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drmcdougall.com

McDougall Newsletter: November 2011

Why Did Steve Jobs Die?

Steve Jobs gave tacit permission and encouragement for me to write this

newsletter article about the medical and nutritional aspects of his life when he

commissioned his biographer to tell a true account. “I wanted my kids to know

about me…” “Also, when I got sick, I realized other people would write about me if

I died, and they wouldn’t know anything. They’d get it all wrong. So I wanted to

make sure someone heard what I had to say.”(556) Jobs

would have been pleased to hear my challenging second

opinions about his pancreatic cancer and his diet, because

my thoughts are in agreement with what he intuitively and

factually knew to be correct. Hopefully, my account will

bring some peace of mind to his family and friends after his

untimely death.

This article is not meant as a critique of his doctors and

their medical care. I am certain these professionals

performed their best for him. In hindsight, everything is

clearer. The purpose of this article is to set the record

straight.

Jobs’ Cancer Began as a Teenager and

Metastasized When He Was a Young Man

“In October 2003 he happened to run into his urologist

who had treated him, and she asked him to get a CAT scan

of his kidneys and ureter.(453) It had been 5 years since

his last scan. The new scan revealed nothing wrong with

his kidneys, but it did show a shadow on his pancreas.” By

the time a tumor is large enough to be seen on a CAT scan

it has grown to a size of at least 2 millimeters (mm) (half

the size of a BB, twice the size of a period on this page). My

guess is that the shadow seen on his pancreas was at least

one centimeter (cm) in diameter (the size of an eraser on a

pencil). This size mass contains 1 billion cells and has been

growing on average for 10 years. Death usually occurs when

the size of individual tumors reaches ten centimeters in

diameter (4 inches). Pancreatic neuro-endocrine (islet cell) tumors, the kind that Jobs had, fit this

pattern of growth.

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The natural history of the growth of Steve Jobs’ pancreatic cancer can be determined by mathematical

calculations. The interval between his diagnosis at age 48 and his death at age 56 was approximately 8

years (October of 2003 and October 5, 2011). From these dates it can be determined that the tumor mass

in his pancreas doubled in size every 10 months. (Commonly, solid tumors of various organs double in

size every 3 to 9 months.) His was a very slow growing tumor.

By knowing this stable rate of doubling (every 10 months), the date when Jobs’ cancer began can be

calculated. His cancer started when he was a teenager or a young adult, possibly as young as 16 years old.

Similar calculations show that his cancer spread from his pancreas to his liver (and other parts of his

body) three decades before his surgery on July 31, 2004. (Exact methods for doing these calculations are

found at the end of this article.)

One of Jobs’ greatest regrets when he found out he had incurable cancer was that he had refused to have

surgery for 9 months after being diagnosed. He believed he might have been cured if he had acted earlier.

Since he was about 20 years old when the cancer spread throughout his body, removing his CAT-scan-

detected cancer in October of 2003 would never have cured him.

How Cancer Grows

People unfamiliar with the manner in which cancer grows are easily fooled into thinking it spreads like

wildfire, almost overnight, because one moment the person appears to be in good health, and then the

next moment the patient has a body full of disease. When the cancer is first diagnosed people believe

that this is “early disease,” that can be “caught in time and cured” if removed. This fairytale view is,

unfortunately, untrue.

Cancer grows at a steady rate (referred to as the doubling time ). Early growth is invisible because the

cancer is microscopic in size. This increase in size of the cancer is hidden from view as one cancer cell

divides into two cells, two into four, and so on. The doublings remain undetectable until the cancer

reaches a size of 1 mm (period-size), which now contains a million cells, after about 6 years of growth.

After 10 years of growth, the tumor is 1 cm in diameter (eraser-size) and contains one billion cells. At

this point in its natural history the doublings become very apparent: one billion cancer cells divide into a

mass containing two billion cells, and with the next doubling there are 4 billion cancer cells inside the

patient’s body. Thus, cancer is undetectable by the patient and his physician for the first two-thirds of its

natural history, and this leads to confusion.

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Cancer Caused Steve Jobs Troubles in His Thirties and Forties

A report about Jobs’ mannerisms during meetings in 1987 said, “His hands, which are slightly and

inexplicably yellow, are in constant motion.”(223). Yellow discoloration of the skin is a classic sign of

jaundice. Cancer in the head of the pancreas commonly causes blockage of the flow of bile, resulting in

jaundice. Likely, the tumor was 1 cm in size (nearly one-half inch) or greater at this time (1987), and

causing partial and intermittent obstruction.

His cancer also caused him abdominal and back pains at least 5 years before his diagnosis in October of

2003. “I was driving up to Pixar and down to Apple in my black Porsche convertible, and I started to get

kidney stones. I would rush to the hospital and the hospital would give me a shot of Demerol in the butt

and eventually I would pass it.”(334) The CAT scan obtained in October of 2003 (which showed the

shadow on his pancreas) revealed nothing wrong with his kidneys.(453)

Kidney stones are caused by a diet high in animal protein. As a strict vegan, it is unlikely that Jobs had

kidney stones. I do not have his medical reports, however, I believe some or all of these episodes of pain

were misdiagnosed and mistreated as pain from kidney stones. Jobs was actually suffering from the

cancer growing in his pancreas.

Proof that the cancer had been present for at least 10 years before the time of diagnosis came at the time

of his surgery on July 31, 2004. “Unfortunately, the cancer had spread. During the operation the doctors

had found three liver metastases.”(456) For his surgeons to see these tumors on the surface of his liver

with the naked eye, each cancer would likely have been at least 1 cm in size. As I explained above, these

metastasizes began three decades before when Jobs was in his early twenties. Finding tumors on the

liver means the cancer has also spread to other organs of the body many years before.

Jobs considered himself to be a very intuitive person, who relied on his own gut feelings. At some level of

consciousness he may have known that he had disease twenty or more years before his diagnosis. In

1983, “Jobs confided in John Sculley (Apple’s CEO) that he believed he would die young.”(155) Jobs was

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only 28 years old when he spoke this prophecy.

Lead (Pb) and Other Carcinogens from Computers Caused Jobs’ Cancer

Jobs would speculate that his cancer was caused by the grueling year that he spent, starting in 1997,

running both Apple and Pixar.(452, 333) He guessed, “That’s probably when this cancer started growing,

because my immune system was pretty weak at that time.”(452) However, based on reliable calculations,

his cancer likely started decades earlier, as a teenager, when he was building computers and other

electronics by his own hands without adequate safety precautions.

The summer after his freshman year at Homestead High School in Los Altos, California, Jobs called Bill

Hewlett of HP on the phone, “And he answered and chatted with me for about twenty minutes. He got

me the parts, but he also got me a job in the plant where they made frequency counters.”(17) Here he was

exposed to toxic chemicals, known to cause cancer of the pancreas. Another example; Jobs soldered

circuit boards in the early days of Apple.(67) This compound (solder) is typically an alloy containing lead,

tin, and other metals. Lead is classified as a probable human carcinogen, a class of substances that are

directly responsible for damaging DNA, and promoting or aiding cancer. Lead is suspected of causing

cancer of the pancreas.

Steve Jobs may be the best-known example of the high risk of cancer for people working in the

electronics industries from occupational exposure to carcinogens. The metals contained in personal

computers include aluminum, antimony, arsenic, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper,

gallium, gold, iron, lead, manganese, mercury, palladium, platinum, selenium, silver, and zinc.

Steve Jobs getting cancer was an unfortunate accident—like being struck by lightening or hit by a car.

The carcinogen(s) entered his body and due to genetics, “bad luck,” or other unknown and uncontrollable

factors his body was susceptible. The cause of his cancer was not due to his vegan diet. In fact, his

healthy diet likely slowed the growth of his tumor, delayed the time of diagnosis, and prolonged his

useful life.

Jobs Suffered with Unfounded Regret, Believing He Had Hastened His Own Death

Jobs lived the final 8 years of his life with regret, guilt, and remorse over delaying his surgery for 9

months after the initial diagnosis of cancer. With one honest sentence his doctors could have relieved

him of this heavy burden. This simple fact could have been told: “Mr. Jobs, you had a body full of cancer

long before October of 2003, when you were diagnosed by a needle biopsy.” Apparently, not one of his

doctors—not James Eason, who had operated on his pancreas in 2004, nor Jeffrey Norton, who had

performed his liver transplant in 2009—told Jobs this indisputable truth.

In October of 2003, after confirming he had a mass in his pancreas, one of his doctors “suggested that he

should make sure his affairs were in order, a polite way of saying that he might have only months to live.

That evening they performed a biopsy by sticking an endoscope down his throat and into his intestines

so they could put a needle into his pancreas and get a few cells from his tumor…It turned out to be an

islet cell or pancreatic neuro-endocrine tumor…”(453)

Jobs initially refused surgery to remove the cancer. “I really didn’t want them to open my body, so I tried

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to see if a few other things would work.”(454) Nine months later, “In July 2004 a CAT scan showed that

the tumor had grown and possibly spread.”(455) Jobs underwent surgery on Saturday, July 31, 2004, at

Stanford Medical Center. He had a modified Whipple’s procedure, which took part of his pancreas.(455)

He reassured his Apple employees the next day when he wrote in an e-mail that the type of cancer he

had, “represents about 1% of the total cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed each year, and can be cured

by surgical removal if diagnosed in time (mine was).”(455) In retrospect, all would agree this statement

was untrue.

Unfortunately, he spent the remainder of his life believing he could have been cured if he had not delayed

his surgery for nine months. “According to Steve Jobs’ biographer, Walter Isaacson, the Apple

mastermind eventually came to regret the decision he had made years earlier to reject potentially

life-saving surgery in favor of alternative treatments like acupuncture, dietary supplements and juices.

His early resistance to surgery was apparently incomprehensible to his wife and close friends, who

continually urged him to do it.” “We talked about this a lot,” says his biographer. “He wanted to talk

about it, how he regretted it. … I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner.” This falsehood

was repeated to the world shortly after Jobs death in a 60-minutes interview with Mr. Isaacson.

By the beginning of 2008 it was clear to Jobs and his doctors that his cancer was spreading.(476) In

April 2009 he underwent a liver transplant. “When his doctors took out his liver, they found spots on the

peritoneum, the thin membrane that surrounds internal organs. In addition, there were tumors

throughout the liver, which meant it was likely that the cancer had migrated elsewhere as well.”(484)

“But, by July 2011, his cancer had spread to his bones and other parts of his body…”(555). Almost

everyone had admitted defeat. He died October 5, 2011 from a body full of cancer that began when he was

a teenager working in Silicon Valley.

The overall consensus was, and still is, that Jobs acted selfishly, stupidly, and irresponsibly when he

refused surgery in October of 2003, at the time of his original diagnosis. Based on the natural history of

his disease, Jobs acted in none of these ways. The cancer had spread many years before his diagnosis,

and was unstoppable by any means.

Job’s Vegan Diet Prolonged His Life

Jobs became a vegetarian in his freshman year at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.(36). He would at

times eat only fruit, and considered himself a fruitarian.(63, 68, 83) He was a lifelong strict vegan (no

animal foods), except for occasional lapses.(91, 155, 260, 458, 527, 528) Jobs often became very upset

when his meals were not prepared to his specifications. When a waiter at a restaurant served him a sauce

with sour cream, Jobs got nasty.(185). He was observed to “spit out a mouthful of soup one day after he

learned that it contained butter.”(260)

Throughout most of his life he was considered a “prickly, whip-thin vegetarian.”(243) He was described

as looking “rather like a boxer, aggressive and elusively graceful, or like an elegant jungle cat ready to

spring at its prey.”(297) However, most of his family, friends, and coworkers did not understand or

sympathize with Jobs’ vegan diet.

His diet was in sharp contrast to that of his Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, who ate at Denny’s and

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