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Steve Jobs Issues Update On His Health
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Jan 05, 2009 09:48 AM
from the can't-believe-this-is-news dept.
from the can't-believe-this-is-news dept.
i4u writes "Rumors about Steve Jobs' health have been flying high again after Apple announced that he will not be holding the keynote at the Macworld 2009. Today Steve Jobs issued a letter with a rather personal update on why he was losing weight in 2008. The reason for losing weight in 2008 is a hormone imbalance that has been reducing proteins. The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward according to Jobs.
Steve and his doctors predict that he will have normal weight again by Spring. So stop the rumors and enjoy Macworld 2009."
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Hormonal Imbalance? (Score:5, Funny)
If anime has taught me anything, Steve Jobs should be back to work in no time with a huge rack.
Re:Hormonal Imbalance? (Score:5, Funny)
I hope not, I've heard that the iRack is unstable.
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Re:Hormonal Imbalance? (Score:4, Funny)
As an FYI on the above joke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcjLEwZqcQI [youtube.com]
Truly funny MadTV skit.
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Re:Hormonal Imbalance? (Score:4, Funny)
> Truly funny MadTV skit.
I know; I was just as shocked as you were.
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Re:Hormonal Imbalance? (Score:5, Funny)
Great, like Mac fanboys aren't in infatuated with him enough already.
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News because (Score:5, Insightful)
from the can't-believe-this-is-news dept
When many people believe that the continued success of a large company depends on one individual, his health becomes news.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When many people believe that the continued success of a large company depends on one individual, his health becomes news.
That's because in Apple's case, it's more than a belief. Apple's success does depend on Steve Jobs, strangely enough. Remember John Sculley?
Re:News because (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:News because (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
yea, they need someone who has the hormones of a 13 year old girl to buy their products!
There, fixed that for you.
Re:News because (Score:5, Funny)
Remember John Sculley?
People usually pick inferior successors, egomaniacs even moreso. Makes their own "term in office" look better. It was Jobs who set up that failure and Jobs who profited from it on his return.
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Re:News because (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:News because (Score:4, Insightful)
Sculley had the the thing running into the ground well before Spindler came along to piss on Apple's fresh grave. Amelio, believe it or not, was relatively good for Apple -- it was through his efforts that Apple bought NeXT and brought Jobs on board.
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Jobs != SinglePointOfFailure (Score:3, Insightful)
If Apple's doomed the minute Jobs is no longer running the helm, you might as well start running like hell as far away as you can from Apple right now. Jobs is a mortal, and will not be around forever. Find a company or product that will not immediately collapse when its founder dies or retires.
Do you *really* want to be running on something with a future that uncertain? I for one don't believe that Apple's on that shakey ground, but for those who do believe that, if they're still running on Apple, they'
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Find a company or product that will not immediately collapse when its founder dies or retires.
Except that there was a long period of time between about 1985 and 1998 or so that Jobs was no longer associated with Apple. That's what? Almost 15 years?
Apple didn't immediately collapse and the Macintosh line existed and was largely successful in niche markets without Jobs.
No, Apple doesn't need Jobs, but I think that without Jobs, Apple would lose its sense of direction.
Re:Jobs != SinglePointOfFailure (Score:4, Funny)
With iClone technology, it won't matter!
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Remember Gil Amelio? He followed Scully, and proceeded to pull Apple stock down to around $10 a share. That's about the time I should have bought a ton of Apple stock. Too bad my time machine was running Windows NT at the time.
Re:News because (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a catalyst. He's not arguably good at anything that's directly useful to development, sales or marketing, but he fires employees and customers up. You could say he's the soul of his company.
My boss is like that: he doesn't know much about the products we make and how they're made, nor is he particularly good at promoting or selling them, but he could convince you to put on suntan lotion in the middle of a blizzard storm.
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Re:News because (Score:5, Insightful)
And, FYI, that's exactly the kind of people that make the big money while us nerds look startled at their sheer ignorance and evident feeble reasoning.
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Re:News because (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is all the more reason for Mr. Jobs to stop giving the keynote. Apple needs to break this perception that Mr. Jobs is Apple. He can't go on working there forever, and if they want to survive once he retires, they need to get him to take a back seat for awhile so the ninny-headed stock holders stop believing the sky is falling every time Mr. Jobs gets a cold.
Incidentally, it's not surprising that Mr. Jobs might have this happen, a lot of people as they get older have thyroid or other changes that cause them to gain or lose weight. E.g. Bush Sr. had that thyroid operation when he was president because it was becoming overactive IIRC.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Next step is for #2 to come out with "Steve Jobs has actually been dead for 3 years". Maybe not that extreme but the best way to reassure investors is to think that Jobs is running everything while having someone else actually run everything.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
When many people believe that the continued success of a large company depends on one individual, his health becomes news.
Seeing that much more people care about "lose" vs. "loose" - I don't think so.
I think you mean many more people.
What is weird is... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What is weird is... (Score:5, Funny)
why is not Ballmer loosing weight despite of being unable to sit down anywhere?
It's not fat, it's muscle. Peons like us don't realize the weight of a good, executive chair.
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It's January 5th (Score:4, Funny)
I don't think Steve is the only one resolving to be "back to normal weight" by spring.
Misspelled (Score:4, Funny)
"stop the Tumors."
There, fixed that for ya...
Re:Misspelled (Score:5, Funny)
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I only want to know (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I only want to know (Score:5, Funny)
For values inside the RDF, the field strength is unchanged.
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Which Steve? (Score:5, Funny)
The big question is, which Steve will be commemorated by the U.S. Postal Service on a stamp? The younger, chubbier Steve or the older, skinnier, playing-in-Vegas Steve. If only there was a precedent...
Okay, so I have to ask the obvious question... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Okay, so I have to ask the obvious question... (Score:5, Funny)
Start using exclusively apple products.
Apple computers, apple software, apple music, apple apples...
Pretty soon you will run out of money, so you will be soon be forced to eating apples grown in the wild and ones you can steal at the market.
You'll be losing weight so fast - Justin Long will try to kill you in a fit of jealousy.
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poor jobs (Score:5, Funny)
I guess Jobs should have eaten an apple a day to keep the doctor away.
Update on my weight (Score:5, Funny)
extreme vegetarian diet? (Score:3, Interesting)
but for a *balanced* vegetarian diet (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously people (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but I can't believe the incredible amount of stupid comments posted here on this article. Jobs basically announces he's not dying and Apple's shares jump 4%. Apple isn't a one man operation and Wall Street knows that. It's probably safe to assume that every single innovation that's come out of Apple in the past 11 years hasn't been dumped straight from Steve's brain either.
Steve's marketing genius [wikipedia.org] and patient leadership are the real value he provides to Apple, and losing his leadership is what makes investors nervous. As some suggest, Apple pulling the Stevenote from MacWorld is an attempt to address the former, but without a plan to address the latter, Wall Street will still freak out at the possibility of Apple losing Jobs.
In a world where IT companies are constantly diversifying their offerings, rushing products to market, and generally playing a bizarre game of throw 50 products at the market and see which ones stick, Apple is playing its cards close to its chest - and has been successfully since Job's return. It's not chasing emerging markets (Netbooks), it's not trying to get into online advertising (Microsoft) and hell it's not even doing things that outsiders think it should be doing to expand its business. Apple's stock value is based on the perception that is has a master plan. This is what makes Apple unique. And this is the value of Steve Jobs.
hormone imbalance (Score:5, Funny)
is an anagram of 'a common rehab line'
Re:Hey Steve... how about a little (Score:5, Insightful)
Being that he had pancreatic cancer, he's probably on a special diet. A fatty diet causes a pancreas much grief.
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Re:Hey Steve... how about a little (Score:5, Informative)
I haven't heard of anyone getting better from pancreatic cancer.
Now you have. A few minutes with Wikipedia reveals that "Jobs was lucky; he had an extremely rare form called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor that can be treated surgically, without radiation or chemotherapy." (From the Fortune article the Steve Jobs Wikipedia article links to.)
It's really dicey for non-experts (or, probably even experts) to make generalizations based on the common name of a cancer, without knowing exactly what variety of the disease it is, what stage it's at, and so on. Jobs has been (apparently) cancer-free since his surgery in July 2004.
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Re:Hey Steve... how about a little (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Steve? (Score:4, Insightful)
dad?
Don't you mean "father"?
"male parental unit" would be acceptable too.
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Re:Should I sell my Apple shares? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You stick it in, and ... boom!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Re:Any doctors reading this? (Score:5, Informative)
A rare but treatable kind of pancreatic cancer, which he foolishly tried to treat by eating mostly raw vegetables, before having the operation. It's not much of speculation, it's a matter of record.
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Re:Any doctors reading this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a physician and I have actually performed a few Whipple procedures in my training. I can say that upon reading this letter, I immediately smelled big-time BS.
There are some treatable medical causes of cachexia (profound weight loss) but they are not difficult to diagnosis. If he had pancreatic insufficiency following his pancreas resection, this should have been quickly noted because it is common and his newfound symptoms of diabetes are easily recognized.
Hyperthyroidism is another cause of weight loss, but any doctor worth his salt would have screened for this right away. Celiac disease is another possibility but again this is not a difficult diagnosis because of the GI symptoms (lots of diarrhea).
The most likely cause of weight loss in this setting is cancer, cancer, and cancer. It can sometimes be very difficult to find where exactly the cancer metastases have recurred, and this can delay the proper diagnosis.
The main thing that Jobs has going for him is that this weight loss was first publicly noted some time ago now, and he does not have other signs of cancer that we know of. Jobs does not seem to be the type to hide it if he knew he had cancer. At least, he didn't hide it the first time, right?
shellac.
Parent
Re:Any doctors reading this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Your comments seem, well... under-informed.
Here's a link to a user comment that I found pretty interesting regarding the ability of post-Whipple procedures patients to process proteins.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/new-money/2009/01/05/some-arent-buying-steve-jobs-hormone-imbalance.html#1593509 [usnews.com]
For those that don't click through, here's a quote of a portion:
"the person has an unusual level of difficulty digesting proteins, fats, and starches since pancreatic enzyme levels are reduced and since the duodenum is missing. Unlike ferrets (who also get a little understood form of insulinoma, with insulinoma being a topic that needs a lot of study still) humans just don't have a lot of excess pancreas to spare. So, the upshot is that his body now will have more of his food go through without needed nutrients digested. Hence, the weight loss.
Add to this that he is a vegetarian, in fact, a vegan. Vegetable protein is especially difficult to break into usable amino acids. Animal protein is far easier to utilize.
Furthermore, people who have had the Whipple Procedure sometimes find themselves simply not feeling like having the many and frequent small meals the procedure makes necessary, and as a vegan Mr Jobs may resist the foods that settle the belly at such times: full fat yogurts, full fat milk, and cheeses. "
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Re:Any doctors reading this? (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I've read in various places, consulting doctors for health advice isn't his primary strategy. I've heard the Whipple was only after everything else (quirky diets, 'alternative' healers) failed. Though I suppose there must have been some testing in there to have a diagnosis in the first place.
I don't know what's going on, I'm just pointing out that the doctors you presume are there may not be (at least regularly), nor would they necessarily have a good patient.
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Taking the bait (Score:5, Insightful)
I shouldn't reply to this ridiculous posting, which implies that somehow because I am both a doctor and a geek I am not allowed to have an opinion on a media report on a medical issue. But fine, I will take the bait.
I am not Steve Jobs' doctor and I am not trying to be. The OP solicited a doctor's opinion and I gave mine with the little information I could guess at from a media report.
COMMON SENSE would dictate that I am not making an ironclad diagnosis from a media report, but apparently it is because of people such as yourself, who are lacking in this capacity, that people have to post disclaimers at the bottom of their comments and email or whatever that they are only giving their opinion and not a professional service.
Before I posted my earlier message I had a discussion about the media report with one of my colleagues. It would seem then that you would prefer doctors to keep such talk to ourselves. You are quite free to block my comments or refrain from reading them from now on.
shellac.
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Re:Taking the bait (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, touchy aren't we? I guess you didn't care too much about the talk regarding McCain's chances of melanoma recurrence either. I think that was an important discussion that I would have chimed in on as well, had I seen a posting here. Just as this discussion is important to certain AAPL shareholders.
But I guess if you don't really have an argument to make you can always attack the individual. Good luck with that.
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