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The recent early death of a technology genius such as Steve Jobs has saddened so many around the world. Since he died after a long fight with pancreatic cancer I feel the need to ask you whether there could be any connection between his cancer and his vegan/vegetarian lifestyle. Is there any scientific evidence showing this potential connection?

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I found this study on the net: medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/5-2007/… about pancreatic cancer and vitamin deficiencies that are typical for vegetarians, such as vitamin b6 and b12 – Philosopher Nov 1 2011 at 23:01
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 Melissa, this post might be duplicative but I don't think it is off topic. It is about whether a competing nutrition theory promotes cancer. – Jay Nov 2 2011 at 14:00

closed as off topic by Bread-Eating Beelzebub Nov 2 2011 at 3:13

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No offence to this question, but why does this question stand but the question "Wi-Fi concern for anyone?" not stand?

Some questions that get deleted look really interesting and should stay, IMO.

I thought that the Wi-Fi question was relevant for people trying to live (hack) a paleo life in a modern world. This question has no real paleo relevance.

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so Peter perhaps you could invent some devise to measure "paleo.relevance" .... I thought diet and health are at the core of paleo concerns, maybe I am missing something here... – Philosopher Nov 2 2011 at 3:10
well you can vote to close it or downvote it. We already had a wi-fi questi on. – Bread-Eating Beelzebub Nov 2 2011 at 3:13
also that question you are referring to was posted by someone trolling the site. If a non-troll user had put it up, I simply would have marked it as duplicate. – Bread-Eating Beelzebub Nov 2 2011 at 3:16
Fair enough, thanks for that Melissa. I don't hate this question, I was just wondering why it was ok when others that seem pretty good get closed. Cheers :) – peter Nov 2 2011 at 6:51
NativePhilosopher - For your information - I actually have that devise so close to complete, my only issue is that that it runs on mains power. I am not willing to release it until it runs on bacon fat! I ran your question through it and it said only 47% paleo relevance. Sorry. – peter Nov 2 2011 at 6:55
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Steve Jobs wasn't a vegan for his entire life. He did, however, have serious eating disorders by which he'd eat only one kind of food for an entire month straight, then completely stop and then eat another single food. This no doubt wreaked havoc on his entire body. Did it lead the pancreatic cancer? No idea. It certainly did not help his situation.

http://www.39online.com/newsfix/kiah-biography-reveals-steve-jobs-also-had-eating-disorders-20111025,0,2847570.story

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Vegans eat whole, real foods. Even though we know they're not eating optimal foods, we also know that what they're eating is better than the SAD.

As for links and studies, one can also find some lame studies that purportedly link red meat intake to cancer, so there you go.

Vegans are not eating in a way that's best for them, to be sure, but I don't know that drumming up cancer links to their way of eating is informative or productive. That's just my opinion, though.

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 I am not interested in drumming up cancer links with veganism, but I am rather interested to find out whether the usual deficiencies in nutrients stemming from avoidance of meats might be a reason for cancer. – Philosopher Nov 1 2011 at 23:33
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As humans we're very prone to speculation but, really, I don't have enough information to make a good guess here. We know he chose to delay conventional treatment and that didn't work for him. We know he was relatively young when his cancer was diagnosed. Other than that, we know that his disease probably resulted from the total combination of his genetics and environment which certainly includes diet. What diet was he raised on? How many variations of vegan/vegetarian diets did he eat at various times? What kind of experimentation did he do in early adulthood? What were his hobbies/sports/health activities? I admit I haven't done exhaustive reading about him and I'm not sure how much information is publicly available.

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 I think the delay in conventional treatment was a big factor. – Annie Nov 1 2011 at 23:23
I read something interesting about that the other day: scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/10/… Still just speculation, of course. – Olivia Nov 2 2011 at 2:00

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