Would Patrick Swayze still be alive without chemotherapy? Leave your comments below.

Patrick Swayze, the man who stole the heart of millions of girls in the 80s and 90s, died this past week.  He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer some 20 months ago, and he fought the disease valiantly until it ultimately took his life.  He was just 57 years old.

In the weeks leading up to his death Sept. 14, radiation and chemotherapy treatment really ramped up in intensity as his conditioned worsened.  For more than a year and a half, though, Swayze never let it get in the way of his work.  Day after day, month after month, he showed no signs of slowing down, granting interview after interview, completing 13 episodes of the A&E drama series The Beast, and bringing greater attention to his disease through telethon appearances and fundraising efforts.

After his death, I asked readers and fans of mine on Facebook to leave some feedback on whether or not they believed chemotherapy hastened his death.  As I suspected, the opinions varied considerably, some suggesting it prolonged his life, others not sure, others convinced that it killed him.

I’m sure many of you have read Suzanne Somers take on Patrick Swayze’s death.  She thinks he would still be alive today if he didn’t use chemotherapy.  To put it mildly, she’s no fan of chemotherapy.

I, too, am no fan of chemotherapy.  As a reader of mine so aptly put it, chemotherapy “reduces the quality of a person’s life,” because not only does it attack cancerous cells, it attacks healthy cells as well.  And while chemotherapy has saved millions of lives—a notion that many holistic practitioners disagree with, in case you’re curious—it’s taken millions of lives as well.  Past studies have shown that chemotherapy treatments likely contributed to as many as 30 percent of cancer-related deaths  and is often misused, which is to say that it’s used when cancer has metastasized so much that its no longer effective.

Suzanne Somers is convinced chemotherapy killed Patrick Swayze.  She has every right to that opinion, and I can understand why she thinks that way.  But as much as I want to believe chemotherapy may have contributed to his death, I’m not 100 percent convinced that it did.

For starters, Swayze smoked all his life.  In fact, he didn’t even stop when he learned he had pancreatic cancer.  He was also known to be somewhat of an alcohol abuser.  That makes for a toxic brew of trouble for anyone, never mind someone with cancer.

Secondly, he was diagnosed with one of the deadliest forms of cancer.  Pancreatic cancer claims an estimated 35,000 lives in the U.S. alone every year.  It is the fourth leading cause of cancer, and while it accounts for two percent of all cancer diagnoses, six percent of all cancer deaths are pancreatic.  That’s a huge disparity!

Finally, Swayze had grade four pancreatic cancer.  Grade four basically means the cancer was already widespread, as opposed to grade one, where the cancer is more centrally located.  So considering the fact that 75 percent of people diagnosed with lower stages of pancreatic cancer die within the first year, and that 98 percent die within five years, it’s amazing he survived as long as he did.

Again, while I wish I could say I knew definitively that chemotherapy killed Swayze, there were too many other contributing factors to know definitively.  In the end, only the deity knows.

All we know is that Swayze was a true legendary talent.  He will forever be remembered for his ability to meld masculinity with sensitivity (as in movies like Ghost and Dirty Dancing), for never taking himself too seriously (as in his skit with Chris Farley as a Chippendale’s dancer on Saturday Night Live) and for remaining a faithful and devoted husband to his wife of 34 years.   May Patrick Swayze rest in peace.

Sources:
cbsnews.com
khou.com

Obesity early in life increases the risk of acquring pancreatic cancer later in life.

It goes without saying that any cancer diagnosis is bad news, but some diagnoses are worse than others.

Virtually all cancers have good survival rates, so long as they’re diagnosed early, but some are hard just plain hard to pinpoint, which means that by the time they are diagnosed and pinpointed, they’ve already advanced past the point of no return.

Among the worst of these cancers is pancreatic cancer.  Lung cancer may be the deadliest form of cancer in the United States, but pancreatic isn’t far behind (fourth deadliest).  And what makes pancreatic cancer really standout is its survival rate – or lack there of.

Again, while lung cancer is the deadliest form of cancer, its five-year survival rate is 15 percent (in other words, 15 percent of people who are diagnosed with lung cancer survive for five years).  That’s an exceptionally low number, but those chances of survival are downright ambitious in comparison to pancreatic cancer – a 5 percent five-year survival rate!  In fact, it metastasizes so quickly, statistics indicate that most people die within six months of diagnosis.

All that said, it is with great concern and worry that I report to you the following:  People who are obese early in life increase their chances of developing pancreatic cancer by as much as 60 percent (a BMI index level over 30).

This chilling discovery was made by researchers from the University of Texas at the M.D Anderson Cancer Center.  In coming to these conclusions, researchers had their group of participants – about half of whom had already been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – fill out detailed questionnaires that questioned their current health and weight status, how much they weighed in past years, and also some family background information.  This background information was important, as it helped the researchers control for contributing factors (ethnicity, history of pancreatic cancer in the family, smoking prevalence, etc.).

After taking these contributing factors into account, they found several linkages to pancreatic cancer and weight.  One of them was that those who were obese in their teens and 20s were about 60 percent more likely to have pancreatic cancer than those who were thin at that age.

Another interesting fact they discovered was weight being tied to how early on in life one is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  For instance, those who were obese in their early adult years were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer around the age of 59 on average, while those who were of normal weight were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer around the age of 64 on average.

The study’s published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

That obesity increases the risk of cancer is not the news here.  That’s been known for a while, and this study confirmed that (there was a higher percentage of people obese and diagnosed with pancreatic cancer than those who were of normal weight and diagnosed with pancreatic cancer).  What is the news is that just being obese, no matter what stage of life, increases the risk of one of the deadliest forms of cancer – and increases that risk more than smoking does!

If that’s not a glaring indication of how risky obesity is, then nothing is.

Sources:
sciencedaily.com
reuters.com
lung-cancer.emedtv.com