Slashdot Mirror
Iain Banks: Extremely Ill With Cancer
The_Other_Kelly writes "News that will shock and sadden the many fans of Iain (M.) Banks. He is suffering from gall bladder cancer, and things do not look good: 'The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for "several months" and it's extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year.' His books, both normal and science fiction, are world view warping Excessions, and my heart goes out to him and his. I am shocked and saddened. Thank you, Iain."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks
As I posted a little earlier on The Guardian:
Desperately sad news.
His contemporary and science fiction novels have been an important part of my life for many, many years, and I shall miss knowing that his twisted and brilliant imagination is beavering away at new works.
But if nothing else, looking for a silver lining to this dark, dark cloud, I'm at least happy to have the chance to thank him publicly, before he's gone, for the great pleasure I've had in reading his books.
I'm sure he's greatly loved by many and I hope that that knowledge can go at least some small way to helping him and his wife through the months to come.
Did anyone else read extremely 'the third'? Seriously need to change that font
He is a great writer. Recently read 'Consider Phlebas' and picked up a couple more of his books immediately after finishing it.
When I read the news my first thought was how terrible it will be that there will be no more culture novels. My 2nd thought was for his family and friends, which is a pretty terrible way of thinking about these things.
My only excuse is that I know the man by the joy his books have given me, and I feel his impending loss by the realisation of the gap in my life that will result when no new ones appear.
Still pretty shitty though
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
I've read all of his books and have grown quite attached to his writing style. Even the more difficult to follow ones such as The Bridge were still pretty good in their own right. I'm a Scot who doesn't live in Scotland any more, so I take particular joy in his books set in Scotland like The Wasp Factory, Complicity and Stonemouth.
Also, You don't have to look far to find a few Culture references in the Halo games.
Fun to meet and loves curry, wine and whisky, what's not to like? My heart goes out to his family. I have religiously each book of his books as they were published, been a tradition for twenty years now, I can't say any other author has consistently astounded me as he has. Some of his more recent has been great as well. (I recommend The Algebraist & Surface Detail). Thank you Iain.
I do hope that he gets to enjoy an adequate amount of time with his family and friends.
His books have given me much enjoyment over the past 20 years. I thank him for that.
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
I'm upset to hear about this, his book "Use of Weapons" was inspired, head and shoulders above the usual fiction mill derivatives. Talent for creation is rare, and the world will be a lesser place without Ian. Get better!
There are some amazing nanotech cancer drugs that look like they are just starting human trials like this one http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/14434/20130328/cancer-treatment-cd47-miracle-bullet-breast-colon-bladder-antibody-eat-macrophage-immune.htm
I know that at this early stage there are definitely not guarantees that it even works on humans. However, at this point, it is not like he can really get worse. I have had friends die from cancer and one of the reasons I went back to school was to help make many lab bench science cures practical industrial ones. If this has any chance at all of working it would be nice if he could try it, it could stop the spread of the cancer giving him a lot more time for other things to develop and it could even completely cure the cancer.
These new immune system type nanotherapies are amazing. The idea of basically planting flags on cancer cells that your immune system will then recognize as something to be destroyed is probably one of the most creative ways to deal with cancer I have seen. Nothing toxic, your body deals with the problem at its own pace, the macrophages tell the other cells in the area to start replicating into the areas they are removing. You also don't have a toxic shock effect of so many cells dieing all at once since the therapy does not kill the cancer cells, it just marks them for destruction by your immune system.
It looks like we are very close to having real treatments and cures and I want to end the suffering that people go through with cancer. The drugs many people end up on towards the end are pretty bad and nobody should go through that.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Banks used a motif in his Culture books that I wish we saw more of in Sci-Fi: a future where (almost) everyone's basic needs of life were taken care of. No poverty or war (most of the time). You didn't have to take a crappy job just to put food on the table and live in some tiny apartment.
This allows the author to explore the potential the human mind and society have if you remove the day-to-day worry of survival. We are, as a species, capable of so much more than just 'survival' and 'business efficiencies' and minimal laws governing what large corporations/governments can do to us. Banks pondered new ideas about what we could dream up if freed from daily worry. New ways of living, thinking in very broad vistas (over time and space), exploring what is possible beyond the body we were born with. Wondering what it would be like to be another gender or species? Make the change! Want to enjoy (truly) exotic adventures, but still maintain a good chance of surviving it? The Culture's got you covered!
I believe that our (unfortunately necessary) focus on survival in our present world draws off energy and creativity that could be applied to expanding what it means to be human. It's nice to read an author who wants to speculate about what might lie beyond our present existence.
Banks will be sorely missed.
Meet you by the excession, but what matters, please first consider playing some games, using some state of the art weapons and learning to play properly the hydrogen sonata inversions, looking windward on the surface detail.
Although i agree that he wrote some good (really) books, (i largely preferred the bridge over the wasp factory, even though the wasp fact. is exellent as well), i doubt that he'll get the same level of fame as Frank Herbert.. even though i liked it at the time, it's just not everybody's cup of tea...
dammit, this wasn't the way i wanted to get news about Mr Ian Banks...
More importantly, Ernie Banks is getting up there at age 82.
...for everything you've given us.
I, like many others, will treasure your work in the decades to come.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Loading...
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.
Firs Pratchett with alzhemer's, now Banks...
FUCK. :'(
It's when you read something like this that you _really_ wish there was a Culture-like entity who could step in and Make Things Good.
Sometimes life throws snake-eyes. Deep sympathies to his family.
Sad indeed, and personal to me, even though have yet to read any of his books. Have to go to the library this Saturday, I guess...
At any rate, reading the linked story where he told of the illness brough back memories of Linda, who died of the exact same thing. She had been living with me since Ralph died, and his account of the progression of the disease exactly matched what she went through. Of course, since it was the exact same disease...
We (our friends and I) had been trying to get her to see a doctor for months, but she didn't until the pain was unbearable. She went in the hospital and they found a tumor on her gall bladder bigger than the gall bladder, unoperable, too late for any treatment at all. She never left alive, staying there four months until she died.
It also strikes a personal note because he's two years younger than me (Linda was only 50). Adams (my age) having his coronary, and Pratchett only four years older than me having Alzheimer's almost makes me afraid to publish Nobots.
I really feel sorry for Banks and his loved ones, who will be suffering along with him. Again, I'll be at the library Saturday.
Sorry I can't log in, guys.
I'm sorry he has cancer and wish him well. This comment is towards the OP - I'm not an uber geek but I know plenty about IT related stuff. It would've been nice to have written a sentence about Iain for those of us who don't know him. Or even a word identifying him as a writer would've suffice, or even a link to his wikipedia entry. Yes, there's google and I already did that.
Again, my best wishes to Iain Banks.
Sci-fi doesn't need to defend itself any more. It is clear now that it is a genuine artistic and intellectual pursuit. Sci-fi matters and Bank on sci-fi matters.
Banks matters because he has stablished a strong humanistic viewpoint on his works. The conflict on dogma and respect, the materialistic world-view, and the dignity of the individual. Reading Banks is a pleasure, not only as it is a great writer and storyteller but because it is extremely hard to join hard sci-fi, space opera and sociological speculation. I was envious when I read Banks novels. My society and my world is so short-sighted. People in power prefer to stop progress afraid they will lose a slice of the pie. Banks is a raw spirit. Hard to classify and never afraid to detect and point to the conflict.
Reading Banks is like driving around in Scotland. Landscape flows and you feel it passing trough, You stop there and have some pure malt whisky, no need to hurry. You know the next day you will flow around the highlands, you can't devour it, you must taste it. You can spend your time smelling the pure landscape, every intricate surface detail for miles.
I think I have read everything he has written. I hate to think that soon he will be on the list of science fiction authors I love that will never publish again. Vonnegut, Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Adams, Burgess, Clarke, Farmer, Herbert I miss them all. To think that we will never be transported to the "Culture" again makes me sad. Good luck to him. I hope that modern medicine and luck can pull him through. If not I am thankful that he spent his time creating the worlds and adventures that I have spent so many hours enjoying.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
Indeed. It doesn't seem to be a good year for artists named Banks so far...
Many hundreds of hours of my life have been spent immersed in the worlds which you created through your seemingly limitless imagination.
The Culture presents a polar-opposite view of the familiar "computers become self-aware" Terminator-type stories. The unfathomably intelligent "Ship Minds" that Banks describes can do much as they please. This usually involves helping humans do whatever they want to do, in a world where resources are essentially unlimited.
Immediately wiping out humanity (Skynet) vs entertaining a mass of humanity and even endowing them with a sense of purpose.
Banks' Minds, like the man himself, seem to derive a great deal of pleasure from their sense of humor and sense of humanism. When sentient AIs are eventually created, I want to see the principles of a man like Iain Banks guiding their motivations. It could be our best shot at surviving the next few thousand years.
Please be some sick joke. Without Banks and Pratchett around, and having nearly finished reading everything from both, I am extremely saddened.
You transformed our lives
with an excession or two,
for a trillion years
Dear Mr. Banks:
Your books have had a profound influence on me ever since I first discovered them so many years ago. Hell, just a few minutes ago I was daydreaming about how desperately we need the intervention of a "Meatfucker" on this planet.
Modern medicine seems to have failed you at this late hour. I wish there were some way I could share with you all of the "controversial" things I've learned about nutrition and the body's amazing ability to heal itself (not to be confused with treatment) but obviously I'm just another asshole with an opinion.
If this is indeed as terminal and hopeless as it sounds... perhaps I'll get to meet you in another life someday.
You, sir, have my eternal gratitude and respect.
Yours truly,
Type44Q
...so I could properly thank him for the pleasure and enlightenment I've got from his books over the last 20 years, and try to express the sadness I feel at this news. Sad, sad, sad.
None of that new age frutarian cancer therapy did much good for Steve Jobs.
I just tried to send an indirect contact to him, with a link to the story, today, about the about-to-begin clinlical trials of the new drug that appears to stop *all* cancers, and suggested his doctor might consider trying to contact the research team.
I'll probably try another means of contacting him this evening, since I do know enough folks that probably have his personal email.
mark, sf fan
To be extremely three with cancer?
So much amazing stuff going on in medicine atm, I wouldn't be surprised if a cure wasn't that far off. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559800/
I'm very sorry for Mr. Banks and his family. I'm sure this is basically impossible to process properly, so hopefully he's able to find some happiness in the days he has left. I found 'The Algebraist' in a bookshop in London, and after reading the blurb on the back, knew I immediately had to buy it. After reading nearly all of his SF books, I can honestly say he's my favorite SF author. He'll be sorely missed.
Eating vegetables isn't going to cure of you cancer, you asshat.
Obviously the 'wasp factory' is well known and one I first read, but the (usually) unmentioned 'song of stone' is one that still sticks in me mind (read it, great unique story telling and narration!).
Sad news, but we will all get there in the end.
"Good afternoon, madam. How may I help you?"
"Good afternoon. I'd like a FrintArms HandCannon, please."
"A--? Oh, now, that's an awfully big gun for such a lovely lady. I
mean, not everybody thinks ladies should carry guns at all, though I
say they have a right to. But I think... I might... Let's have a look
down here. I might have just the thing for you. Yes, here we are!
Look at that, isn't it neat? Now that is a FrintArms product as well,
but it's what's called a laser -- a light-pistol some people call
them. Very small, as you see; fits easily into a pocket or bag; won't
spoil the line of a jacket; and you won't feel you're lugging half a
tonne of iron around with you. We do a range of matching accessories,
including -- if I may say so -- a rather saucy garter holster. Wish I
got to do the fitting for that! Ha -- just my little joke. And
there's *even*... here we are -- this special presentation pack: gun,
charged battery, charging unit, beautiful glider-hide shoulder holster
with adjustable fitting and contrast stitching, and a discount on your
next battery. Full instructions, of course, and a voucher for free
lessons at your local gun club or range. Or there's the *special*
presentation pack; it has all the other one's got but with *two*
charged batteries and a night-sight, too. Here, feel that -- don't
worry, it's a dummy battery -- isn't it neat? Feel how light it is?
Smooth, see? No bits to stick out and catch on your clothes, *and*
beautifully balanced. And of course the beauty of a laser is, there's
no recoil. Because it's shooting light, you see? Beautiful gun,
beautiful gun; my wife has one. Really. That's not a line, she
really has. Now, I can do you that one -- with a battery and a free
charge -- for ninety-five; or the presentation pack on a special
offer for one-nineteen; or this, the special presentation pack, for
one-forty-nine."
"I'll take the special."
"Sound choice, madam, *sound* choice. Now, do--?"
"And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three
six-five AP/wire-fl'echettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a
Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding
rounds, not the signalers. I assume the night-sight on this toy is
compatible?"
"Aah... yes, And how does madam wish to pay?"
She slapped her credit card on the counter. "Eventually."
-- Iain M. Banks, "Against a Dark Background"
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
"It was the day my grandmother exploded" is still my favourite opening line to a novel.
We should send him a get well gift.
I suggest a hat...
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Most here are probably familiar with his SF, but his fiction (like Wasp) is also quite good.
I found The Steep Approach To Garbadale to be sort of a non-SF version of Use of Weapons, with the inter-familial squabbles.
Can we please destroy all fonts where uppercase i and lowercase L appear the same? I first read the headline as saying "Extremely three with cancer."
I'm a massive fan and like others shamefully thought of my loss first and his loss second...
I love all the Culture novels for so many of the reasons in the other comments...but to my mind the ship names were a masterpiece - infinite in variety, always relevant and always funny...they must have been the hardest bit of each book?
"meet you at the Excession"
That's a bit like saying no one should not use "NoScript" because they know someone who had trouble using Facebook with it installed.
If someone has a localized cancer that is easily treatable completely by surgery, then surgery can make a lot of sense of course. Steve Job's cancer apparently was one rare such situation. In that sense, he did regret not having surgery sooner. But many cancers, by the time they are detected, can't be easily removed surgically. Procedures to remove cancers can also let cancerous cells loose in the bloodstream. Removing one cancer may allow others that cancer suppressed to grow. Even when cancers can be removed 100% surgically, the conditions (diet and lifestyle) that contributed to the cancer growing would likely just support more cancers or other health issues. There are also quite a few cases of a person's immune system rallying and the cancer going into remission.
Consider:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/27/opinion/weil-steve-jobs
"Steve Jobs had a long run with a rare form of cancer (a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor) that is sometimes curable by early surgery. While I was not his physician and don't have access to the details of his illness or its treatment, assertions that his use of alternative medicine shortened his life strike me as uninformed. No one knows how long he would have survived or what his quality of life would have been had he opted for immediate surgery and used only conventional treatment."
And:
http://www.livescience.com/16551-steve-jobs-alternative-medicine-pancreatic-cancer-treatment.html
" "I don't think waiting nine months for surgery was a bad decision," Dr. Maged Rizk, a gastroenterologist at Cleveland Clinic, told WebMD in an interview last week. "Especially if it is limited disease, especially if it is an islet-cell tumor and the cells are [typical of early cancer], and as long as you don't have symptoms, you can sit on it a bit," Rizk said. (Neuroendocrine tumors are also known as islet-cell tumors.)
But what about Jobs' use of alternative medicine? Could that have had an impact on his cancer?
Some experts say that, if anything, use of alternative medicine approaches may have helped Jobs' overall health. Jobs lived 8 years after his diagnosis.
The average life expectancy for someone with a metastatic neuroendocrine tumor is about two years, according to PCAN. (It remains unclear whether Jobs' cancer was metastatic when he was diagnosed.)
"I believe that he must have really refocused his heath practices," through changes in diet and exercise, said Dr. Ashwin Mehta, an assistant professor and medical director of integrative medicine at the University of Miami's Sylvester Cancer Center. "To do as well as he did, he must have done a lot of things right," Mehta said."
So yes, eating better may have helped Steve Jobs live a lot longer, whatever one can say about his decision about surgery. Iain Banks says parts of his cancer are inoperable, so it is a very different situation. He says he is considering chemotherapy; I pointed to potential ways as to how to make it more effective,
People are always getting pre-cancerous and cancerous cells. They usually don't get "cancer" because their body's immune system kills the cells. So, anything you can do to strengthen your immune system can help you do better. So can anything you do to remove additional toxins and also to remove things that may promote cancer growth (including apparently some substances in dairy).
The worst thing about making cancer treatment decisions (beyond all the personal trauma) may be that most oncologists get paid by the treatment. So there is no financial incentive for oncologists to suggest anything other that treatments they can supply. This sort of conflict-of-interest between patient and specialist physici
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
My post on cancer and nutrition got modded down to zero, so obviously there are more people who share your sentiments. I'd suggest they did not read my post very carefully. See also my followup post here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3610805&cid=43353459
See also:
"Joel Fuhrman MD: Nearly Everyone Gets Cancer "
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3610805&cid=43353459
To turn things around, from what I read, most mainstream cancer treatments don't cure cancer, with many extending the lifespan at most a few months on average (and painful months at that). When your doctors have told you you have a few months left to live and have inoperable cancer, what do you have to lose by eating better? But some people here would apparently prefer to prevent Iain Banks from making his own informed choice about that, or for others to learn how to prevent a similar situation for themselves using all this computer technology we created. What's the point of all this fancy computer networking stuff if we can't use it collectively to share ways to improve our health?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I pointed to potential ways as to how to make it more effective
No you didn't. You pointed to a bunch of probable quackery. I mean, you advised that Banks should listen to fucking Andrew Weil of all people.
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/weil.html
So can anything you do to remove additional toxins and also to remove things that may promote cancer growth (including apparently some substances in dairy).
I've got a hint for you: most of the stuff you read in the popular press about "toxins" is complete bullshit (particularly generic context-free nonspecific "toxins"). As are magical diet plans sold by alt-med promoters to get rid of them.
From another post of yours below:
When your doctors have told you you have a few months left to live and have inoperable cancer, what do you have to lose by eating better?
I like how you assume that Banks must've been eating poorly, and therefore in need of correction. And that he wouldn't be getting advice on how to eat right from his doctors already. And that the best people to listen to for diet advice are quacks.
(I'd guess that someone who's developed jaundice as a side effect of getting cancer, and who must restore liver function before being able to begin chemo, is probably already getting some very specific dietary advice from real doctors as part of his course of treatment.)
This is bitter news, Banks is my favorite living author. You have to admire the way he's handled it, though, with typical grace and a solid infusion of black humor.
Here is the link for his special statement about the cancer diagnosis: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/apr/03/iain-banks-cancer-statement-full
And here is a guestbook where you can leave a personal though quite public message for Iain, this page was apparently set up just for well wishers after the news of the cancer broke: http://friends.banksophilia.com/guestbook/
The news looks bad indeed. One can only hope for some kind of last-minute spontaneous remission. Barring that miracle, he will be sorely missed.
Now that's the kind of black humour Iain would appreciate. xD
Show the peer reviewed studies that show statistically that frutarian cancer remedies work. Otherwise this is just snake-oil and quackery. It doesn't matter how many downmarket tabloids and blogs you link to.
Sure, no one is in any doubt that wholefoods (fruit, veg, meat, fish etc.) are better for your general health than processed food like twinkies and milkshakes. But that's a whole different issue from whether certain foods do anything to combat cancer.
-----[ If the author, or a loved one of his, is reading... please look into this carefully! ]----
Cancerous cells love sugar. IPT uses that to launch a trojan horse attack with very low dose chemo. For this condition IPT is challenging, but a very promising treatment (please see Google link below):
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Insulin+Potentiation+Therapy+(IPT)&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#hl=en&gs_rn=8&gs_ri=tablet-gws&pq=insulin%20potentiation%20therapy%20(ipt)&cp=51&gs_id=1w&xhr=t&q=Insulin+Potentiation+Therapy+(IPT)+gall+bladder
My favourite book is the algebraist. He tells you what the biggest secrets of that universe are on the first page, then he leaves you scrambling to figure it out until the very end.
One of the reasons I quoted Iain Banks about "the good ship Arbitrary" is that I half-expected this kind of response from someone who is having their paradigms about health challenged. In this case though, it is not hilarious, it is only sad.
See, for example:
http://www.raysahelian.com/quackwatch.html
" Is Stephen Barrett, M.D. a Quack?
According to the Quackwatch website, Stephen Barrett, M.D. says this about quackery: Dictionaries define quack as "a pretender to medical skill; a charlatan" and "one who talks pretentiously without sound knowledge of the subject discussed."
Stephen Barrett, M.D. does not have a degree in nutrition science. He has been trained in psychiatry but has not practiced psychiatry for many, many years and has, to the best of my understanding, never practiced nutritional medicine. In my opinion, Stephen Barrett, M.D., when it comes to the field of medicinal use of nutritional supplements, can be easily defined as a Quack since he pretends to "have skills or knowledge in supplements and talks pretentiously" without actually having clinical expertise or sound knowledge of herbal and nutritional medicine.
A person can't be an expert at a topic if they have not had hands-on experience. Would you feel comfortable having heart surgery by a doctor who has read all the medical books on how to surgically replace a heart valve but has never performed an actual surgical procedure in an operating room? Would you feel comfortable relying on nutritional advice from a retired psychiatrist, Stephen Barrett, M.D. of Quackwatch, even though he has not had hands-on experience using supplements with patients and does not have a degree in nutrition science?
On a positive note, he often does a good job when it comes to researching credentials of individuals in the nutritional industry, or researching the legitimacy or marketing practices of certain supplement companies. He has uncovered or brought to light several cases of companies that have shady or fraudulent practices. I suggest he stay on this course (which is his forte) rather than giving his uneducated opinion on nutritional medicine or supplement research. I also hope he becomes more balanced in his reviews and makes the effort to also mention positive outcomes regarding supplement research, and not just negative outcomes. "
On dairy specifically, see:
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Fatty-dairy-linked-to-early-cancer-death-4355398.php
"People who are diagnosed with breast cancer and then go on to consume a steady diet of high-fat dairy foods increase their chances of dying years earlier than those who consumed low- to nonfat milk products, according to a new study by Kaiser Permanente researchers. The study, published Thursday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is considered the first to look at the differences in high-fat and low-fat dairy intake following a breast cancer diagnosis on long-term survival."
Am I making an assumption about Iain Banks' diet? Yes. But most people in the industrialized world eat a "standard American diet" or a variant of that (standard Scottish diet?). Most are vitamin D deficient. (Jaundice can be related to sunlight deficiency.) Most are iodine deficient. So, those are pretty safe assumptions. All can contribute to cancer. If they are not correct here, well at least others may still learn something.
I pointed to a scientific study related to fasting improving the effectiveness of chemotherapy. I pointed to Dr. Joel Fuhrman's work on preventing cancer which is heavily based in science (just read his reference list). Just scroll down on this page:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
As I said originally, once you have detectable cancer, it is iffy to get rid of it, although eating better can help prevent recurrence and possibly help some during treatments (and medically-supervised fasting may help too in some cases). You are ignoring also that I mention things like vitamin D and iodine, which are not "fruits". Also, "vegetables" and "mushrooms" are not fruits. Just to get started on the links between nutrition and cancer, from: http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
References:
1. Santarelli RL, Pierre F, Corpet DE. Processed meat and colorectal cancer: a review of epidemiologic and experimental evidence. Nutr Cancer. 2008 ; 60(2): 131?144.
2. Larsson SC ; Wolk A. Meat consumption and risk of colorectal cancer: a meta-analysis of prospective studies. Int J Cancer. 2006; 119(11):2657-64.
3. Sinha R, Park Y, Graubard BI, et al. Meat and meat-related compounds and risk of prostate cancer in a large prospective cohort study in the United States. Am J Epidemiol. 2009 Nov 1;170(9):1165-77.
4. Chao A, Thun JT, Connell CJ, et al. Meat Consumption and Risk of Colorectal Cancer JAMA 2005;293:172-182.
5. Sesink AL, Termont DS, Kleibeuker JH, Van der Meer R. Red meat and colon cancer: dietary haem-induced colonic cytotoxicity and epithelial hyperproliferation are inhibited by calcium. Carcinogenesis 2001;22(10):1653-1659. Hughes R, Cross AJ, Pollock JR, Bingham S. Dose dependent effect of dietary meat on endogenous colonic N-nitrosation. Carcinogenesis 2001; 22(1):199-202.
6. Zheng W, Lee S. Well-done Meat Intake, Heterocyclic Amine Exposure, and Cancer Risk. Nutr Cancer. 2009 ; 61(4): 437?446.
7. Fraser GE. Association between diet and cancer, ischemic heart disease, and all-cause mortality in non-Hispanic white California Seventh-Day Adventists. Am J Clin Nutr 1999;70(3 supp.):532-38S. Sarasua S, Savitz DA. Cured and broiled meat consump- tion in relation to childhood cancer. Cancer Causes Control 1994;5(2):141-48. Favero A, Parpinel M, Franceschi S. Diet and risk of breast cancer: major findings from an Italian case-control study. Biomed Pharmacother 1998;52(3):109-15. Levi F, Pasche C, La Vecchia C, Lucchini F, Franceschi S. Food groups and colorectal cancer risk. Br J Cancer 1999;79(7-8):1283-87.
Steinmetz KA, Potter JD. Food-group consumption and colon cancer in the Adelaide Case-Control Study: meat, poultry, seafood, dairy foods and eggs. Int J Cancer 1993;53(5):720-27. Levi F, Franceschi S, Negri E, La Vecchia C. Dietary factors and the risk of endometrial cancer. Cancer 1993;71(11):3575-81.
Negri E, Bosetti C, La Vecchia C, et al. Risk factors for adenocarcinoma of the small intestine. Int J Cancer 1999;82 (2): 171-74.
Chow WH, Gridley G, McLoughlin JK, et al. Protein intake and risk of renal cell cancer. J. Nat. Cancer Inst. 1994;86: 1131-39.
Kwiatkowski A. Dietary and other environmental risk factors in acute leukemias: a case- control study of 119 patients. Eur J Cancer Prev 1993;2(2):139-46.
National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. 1996. Cancer rates and risks: cancer death rates among 50 countries (age adjusted to the world standard), 4th ed. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Lung cancer, p. 39. Source: World Health
Organization data as adapted by the American Cancer Society.
Deneo- Pelligrini H, De Stefani E, Ronco A, et al. Meat consumption and risk of lung cancer; a case- control study from Uruguay. Lung Cancer 1996;14 (2-3):195-205.
Zhang S, Hunter DJ, Rosner BA, et al. Greater intake of meats and fats associated with higher risk of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. J Nat Cancer Inst 1999;91(20):1751-58.
Cunningham AS. Lymphomas and animal-protein consumption. Lancet 1976;27:1184-86. Franceschi S, Favero A, Conti E, et al. Food groups, oils and butter, and cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx. Br J Cancer 1999;80(3-4):614-20.
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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Although I don't doubt your sincerity, I can't believe that fasting while you're already weakened from chemotherapy is a very good idea. I'd certainly want better evidence than an article in the Daily Mail.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Some top Google results for "fasting cancer chemotherapy": http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fasting-might-boost-chemo
"Fasting appears to protect normal cells from chemotherapy's toxic effects by rerouting energy from growing and reproducing to internal maintenance. But cancer cells do not undergo this switch to self-repair and so continue to be susceptible to drug-induced damage -- making for what the researchers call a differential stress resistance. Fasting, then, the authors wrote, should enhance the power of chemotherapies without having to resort to "the more typical strategy of increasing the toxicity of drugs.""
So fasting during chemotherapy works in part precisely because it protects the chemotherapy patient's normal cells from becoming weakened.
Human trials are starting up:
"Clinical Trials: Short-Term Fasting Before Chemotherapy in Treating Patients With Cancer"
http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01175837
Research by Valter Longo, of the University of South California (USC) in Los Angeles on mice:
"Fasting May Boost Chemo By Weakening Cancer Cells"
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/241454.php
"He and his colleagues found, for example, that repeated cycles of fasting with chemotherapy cured 1 in 5 mice with a highly aggressive form of children's neuroendocrine cancer, and 40% of mice with a less severe form. In either case, no mice survived when treated only with chemo. For their study, in which they used used cancer cells and mice, Longo and colleagues found that for all the cancers they tested, fasting combined with chemotherapy improved survival, slowed tumor growth and/or limited the spread of tumors. They found that fasting without chemotherapy, slowed the growth of breast cancer, melanoma, glioma and human neuroblastoma. In several cases, fasting was as effective as chemotherapy."
Cancer patients looking into it:
"48 hr Fasting before Chemo"
http://csn.cancer.org/node/237518
Here are two books related to fasting in general.
One is from a century ago by Upton Sinclair:
http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/fasting-cure-for-health.html
One from a decade or two ago by Joel Fuhrman:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-food-dr-fuhrman-on-fasting.html
"Therapeutic fasting accelerates the healing process and allows the body to recover from serious disease in a dramatically short period of time. In my practice I have seen fasting eliminate lupus and arthritis, remove chronic skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema, health the digestive tract in patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, and quickly eliminate cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure and angina. In these cases the recoveries were permanent: fasting enabled longtime disease suffers unchain themselves from their multiple toxic dugs and even eliminate the need for surgery, which was recommended to some of them as their only solution."
One problem of course in Western Medicine is than an oncologist can't justifying charging, say, $20,000 for telling a potential customer just to stop eating for a bit. Not sure if the source is accurate, but the sentiment probably is:
http://www.doctoryourself.com/longevity.html
"One-quarter of what you eat keeps you alive.
The other three-quarters keeps your doctor alive.
(Hieroglyph found in an ancient Egyptian tomb.) "
But ultimately, while fasting can help some people, people need to eat healthier long term. One big problem with people today fasting is that there is so many to
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Second link should be instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGrmA8iylds
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Karma is a bitch, isn't it Mr. Banks?
Have not read his books, they may be good for all I know, but Mr. Banks is a digusting racist creature and all I can think right now is that the universe will be a bit cleaner with his passing. The universe is a harsh and cruel place, but Karma makes it slightly less so. Enjoy your cancer, mr. Banks and I hope you read slashdot and will see this message before it gets censured.