> Steve Jobs is a prime example, he tried to treat his pancreatic cancer with fruit.

Pancreatic cancer will fuck you up pretty much no matter what you do. I think it literally is the cancer with the smallest survival rate

He was lucky to get a rare, slow moving form of the cancer that can be cured with surgery if caught early enough. Unfortunately he waited nine months before getting surgery.

Glioblastoma has entered the chat :-)

He's not a prime example of anything to do with fruit making things worse. His chosen therapy just as likely had no worsening impact on his cancer; the problem was it had no positive impact either and he put off surgery.

He had a rare form of pancreatic cancer that grows from the tip of the pancreas and can sometimes be snipped out without consequence early enough that it doesn't spread.

He presumably freaked out about it all nevertheless (because it's terrifying), avoided surgery for too long and ended up having a Whipple procedure, which is fucking brutal.

But there's still a pretty good chance he would have had early surgery and still ended up needing a Whipple procedure and still have passed away on roughly the same timescale. Because pancreatic cancer is a stealthy thing, and the Whipple procedure comes with its own frightening future.

It's really sad he freaked out, it's really sad he didn't listen. But it's not that unusual. He's far from unique in making irrational decisions in the face of terrifying diagnoses. Should it have been a slam dunk decision? Yeah. Of course. But there we are.

He was following "fruitarianism" on and off even before his diagnosis, I think it's reasonable to suspect it had something to do with his cancer, but I wasn't aware of those details, so thanks for providing them.

And yet:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16172215/

I mean... in terms of our scientific understanding at this point, sporadic pancreatic cancer just comes from nowhere. We don't know why. In the case of the parent I lost to it, it could have been triggered by a response to inflammation from previous surgery. It seems plausible. But nobody knows.

I just think people snarking or factoiding about Steve Jobs' panicked response to an awful disease comes across as projection of other judgements more than anything else. He was a complicated, self-reliant person who made a bad decision when he was scared. And it probably (but by no means certainly) cost him a few years of health. And now he is gone. And it's still sad for the people who lost him and for the wider world.

I'm sorry about your parent.

I didn't mean to dunk on Steve Jobs, but I'm sure even he would agree he had an eccentric and extremist personality and the bit about fruitarianism seems very relevant esp with happenings like [Ashton Kutcher being hospitalized when he tried to mimick it](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jan/28/ashton-kutcher-...)

relevant quote:

> "First of all, the fruitarian diet can lead to, like, severe issues," Kutcher told USA Today. "I went to the hospital like two days before we started shooting the movie. I was like doubled over in pain. My pancreas levels were completely out of whack. It was really terrifying … considering everything."

anecdata is no substitute for controlled studies. This study says fructose may have cancer implications, and Steve Jobs did focus on consuming fruit before he died of cancer. That there were treatments available that he forwent is immaterial, he's still a fructose datapoint in this context.

i hate nerd tunnel vision. "I know a lot about some related things so I must know the answer.

With respect, it's absurdly more specious and naive to go from

"mouse study suggests contigent relationship between fructose and cancer cell behavior as seen in the specific limited models of the study, inviting further research"

to

"Public figure with especially agressive and entirely unrelated cancer reportedly ate something that happens to contain fructose and eventually died! Same thing!"

He didn't just eat some fruit, he ate ONLY fruit and JUICED it. He MEGADOSED on fruit.

That still doesn't inform us in any way that directly relates to the study.

In the big picture of cancer research, there are countless caveats and idiosycracies because most cancers are more different from each other than they are similar. This is only amplified when you're trying to make inferences about dietary consumption, where interactions between coincident foodstuffs have large chaotic effects and species (and individuals) often have different digestive behavior on the way from dietary food to some intracellular interaction.

Ignoring all that inherent, acknowledged, complexity so that one might harp on some dead punching bag whose story is only known through the lens of commercial media is about as anti-scientific as you could be.

nobody here was drawing vast conclusions from Steve Jobs eating fruit; there is nothing for you to deflate

Just as celebrities with diseases can draw attention to that disease, for the good with regard to other sufferers, a study about fructose and cancer can draw attention to "Steve Jobs diet was fructose".

Attention drawn. There's nothing you can do about it.

And you are not debunking anything because nobody asserted anything except a single fact; you're just shouting in a mirror about how clever you are.

> anecdata is no substitute for controlled studies.

Using Steve Jobs as an example is also anecdata.

> That there were treatments available that he forwent is immaterial

Is it really?

> i hate nerd tunnel vision

I don't hate anyone but if I did, I'd probably start with people who don't extend compassion and understanding where it costs nothing to do so.

Compassion is not an excuse for a Reality distortion field. This killed Steve Jobs and might kill many more.

Pancreatic cancer killed him, you absolute nitwit.

calling people names won't change the fact that his life-long diet caused his cancer and killed him. You should read what the research is saying in place of being here offending people that by their personal experience agrees with the finding that "fructose in diet enhances tumor growth".

You are not the only person with experience with this kind of cancer in the family and have no compassion for the many sugar addicts going through cancer getting served fruit juice when they go to the hospital, which is poison for them.

> the fact that his life-long diet caused his cancer and killed him

It's not even a fact that it was a life-long diet.

It's certainly not a known fact that it caused his cancer. You don't know. Nobody knows.

> calling people names won't change the fact that his life-long diet caused his cancer and killed him.

Steve Jobs was not a life-long fruitarian. He dabbled in all sorts of different diets. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography he seems to have generally lived as a pescatarian. Interestingly enough that diet is considered one of the healthier ones.

Obviously Steve Jobs should not have delayed his surgery. I understand that people are angry that a man with his means was still able to get a transplant and all the medical care that is unavailable for the rest of us. I understand. However to assume that his disease (and death) was the result of a diet choice when there is no credible evidence for it seems rather absurd.

> I understand that people are angry that a man with his means was still able to get a transplant

That's something I never heard. Are you angry because Steve Jobs got a transplant?

> However to assume that his disease (and death) was the result of a diet choice when there is no credible evidence for it seems rather absurd.

Have you tried reading the research in the post before commenting?

> Are you angry because Steve Jobs got a transplant?

I am not angry however that was a sentiment often linked to the fact that he delayed his surgery.

> Have you tried reading the research in the post before commenting?

Unless I missed a comment there was absolutely no serious research shared that credibly connects let alone confirms that his death was connected to this diet choice.

The one who ends up calling the other one names always loses.

> Using Steve Jobs as an example is also anecdata.

I said Steve Jobs was a single datapoint.

You said your parent gave you the right to tell people here to fuck off.

you don't think other people here have close relatives who died of cancer? and this informs us about fructose in this study how?

> You said your parent gave you the right to tell people here to fuck off.

I literally did not, did I? I mean, that is pure projection.

I'm sure I don't have any such right, nor should I need it.

Fructose in fruits is trapped inside webs of fiber, the gut can more capably deal with fructose in this form vs. fructose found in candy or soda. GP is more right than wrong.

> Fructose in fruits is trapped inside webs of fiber, the gut can more capably deal with fructose in this form

that's bro science. With or without fiber, fructose will be separated and metabolized by the liver and go through the cycle described by the research. Read the thing.

This comment is a perfect example of what the origin of complete nonsense with sticking power looks like on the internet: a couple insults and denigrations, a refutal without substantiation, and a confident suggestion for one to do their own research (of course without providing a reference study from a journal of consideration) and calling it a day.

Fructose from whole fruits is processed and metabolized differently. Indeed fructose trapped inside fiber will take some time to be digested, and a sharp blood spike is prevented. Sugar from fruits is not bad in the way sugar from soda is bad.

https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5001.abstract

Just read the research of the post, could you?

steve jobs was known to be an asshole. i wonder how much that had an impact on dealing with the condition.

on the other hand, I wonder what kind of steve jobs would the world have had, had he survived.

would he have pushed cancer research further, somehow? maybe by getting involved and providing funding and technology, maybe novel technology, for cancer research? or would he have gone full-cynical and focused on something else entirely?

we'll never know, for sure.

Pancreatic cancer doesn’t have good prognosis in the first place, no matter what you eat or don’t eat.

But his was actually one of the most treatable forms and he could have potentially had many many years added to his life had he initially listened to his doctors.

Yes I was downvoted last time I posted this, but: Don't try to be your own lawyer, and don't try to be your own doctor.

This is the tail wagging the dog.

Jobs' fruitarianism meant he didn't eat eggs, meat, dairy, or other sources of selenium. Fruit doesn't contain selenium. One of Selenium deficiency's side effects, well established in the literature: pancreatic cancer.

> Steve Jobs is a prime example, he tried to treat his pancreatic cancer with fruit.

That is true – and probably didn't help. But his case is a poor example since he delayed treatment for months.

EDIT: Also, actual fruits are probably not an issue. It's difficult to eat too much fruit, unless in juice form... which he did.

Another comment mentioned that the mechanism by which fructose promotes tumor growth is that it increases circulating lipids. But I'm wondering, doesn't keto (which seems to fight cancer) also do that?

Not much evidence that keto fights cancer any better than any other exclusion diet; it might even be worse than meat exclusion diets.

"Not much evidence"? That is so far from the truth.

Interesting. There's some evidence that fasting fights cancer, and there's a good deal of overlap between the effects of keto and fasting.

Though obviously "stop eating everything that gives you cancer" is also a good start, and you can definitely eat processed garbage even on keto.