[jedberg]

Perhaps. He said in October he was in remission, in December it was back, but they are trying some new experimental treatments. So maybe this will be one of those cases where everyone is happy about rich people having better medical outcomes.

[Waterluvian]

Wasn't it Jobs who had a "rare form" of pancreatic cancer that was in a way more treatable than usual, leading to him living many more years?

[kick]

Jobs's diet came from a 1971 book written by a very convincing yet irresponsible man who got kicked out of teaching at Harvard (this isn't actually a joke; Steve's comments on the book Be Here Now suggest exactly this, and I definitely can't blame him).

His diet and his refusal of treatment was what killed him.

For some reason I doubt Trebek is the easily-swayed college student Jobs was when the ideas that got him killed overtook him.

[Waterluvian]

That's all interesting but I'm not sure how we got to talking about his diet.

I looked it up and indeed he had pancreatic cancer eight years before he died. Suggests that it's possible for Trebek to live for some time yet given not all forms are untreatable.

[kick]

His diet was correlated with pancreatic cancer, and he doubled down on it after he had got it; foregoing treatment to use a more extreme version of it, until it was too late to be treated effectively.

[Waterluvian]

Interesting thanks. I thought the course of events was: get cancer. Use quackery for a while to no effect. Get real treatment. Discover its a treatable form of cancer. Live half a decade more. Succumb to cancer.

[phonon]

Unfortunately, the doctors told him it was a (rare) treatable form of cancer that needed to be surgically treated immediately, he refused, preferred to treat with diet, didn't work, finally had to have a more much invasive surgical intervention (transplant). Helped, but he still died. If he would treated it correctly when he was first informed, he would probably still be alive.