CNN: Steve Jobs Was a Difficult Patient

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Former Apple chief Steve Jobs was notoriously difficult, not least as a cancer patient, it turns out.

After discovering in October 2003 that he had a pancreatic tumor, he put off the surgery that doctors recommended to see if a "few other things would work," Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson (TIME's former managing editor): "other things" like a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other alternative therapies, even psychic consultation.

Jobs relented to surgery in July 2004, but afterward, refused to adhere to recommended care when it came to his diet. Offering fascinating excerpts of Isaacson's book, CNN's Elizabeth Landau notes that Jobs had unconventional, obsessive eating habits — he routinely fasted or ate extremely restrictive diets, sometimes refusing to eat at all — which he maintained, despite that fact that "standard of care [for pancreatic surgery patients] is to have frequent meals and a diet with a variety of proteins from meats, fish and milk," Landau reports.

Jobs' disordered eating contributed to his striking 40-lb. weight loss in the spring of 2008 as the cancer spread from his pancreas to his liver. In 2009, he had a liver transplant, but by that time, doctors thought, the cancer had likely spread to other parts of his body. Landau reports:

Jobs again went against doctors when he insisted that they not pump out his stomach when they needed to perform a routine procedure. That led to pneumonia, and he might have died. But he survived, and didn't lose his stubbornness, even while deeply sedated. He thought the oxygen monitor on his finger was "ugly and too complex," and offered ideas for making the design simpler.

By Christmas 2010, Jobs was down to 115 lbs. and still eating unconventionally or refusing to eat. "Cancer curbs appetite, but Isaacson suggests Jobs had a deeper complication from his psychological attitude toward food," Landau reports.

Read the full CNN story here.

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Steve Jobs Had LSD. We Have the iPhone

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Days before Apple founder Steve Jobs died, the New York Times ran an op-ed proclaiming that "You Love Your iPhone. Literally." Our infatuation with our iPhones is not mere addiction, but genuine love, the piece asserted, because brain scans proved it. There's no doubt that Jobs' computers were the first of their kind to engender such widespread and ardent passion. So why did 45 neuroscientists write an angry letter to the Times disputing the science behind the contention?

The paradoxes of love have perhaps never been clearer than in our relationships with Apple products — the warm, fleshy desire we feel for such cold, hard, glassy objects. But Jobs knew how to inspire material lust. He knew that consumers want something that not only sparkles and awes, but also feels accessible, easy to use, an object with which we want to merge and to feel one and the same.

Not coincidentally, that's how people describe the experience of taking psychedelic drugs. It feels profoundly artificial yet deeply real, both high-tech and earthy-crunchy, human and mystically divine — in a word, transcendent. Jobs had this experience. He said that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he'd ever done. "He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand," John Markoff reported for the Times.

As attested by the nearly spiritual devotion so many consumers have to Jobs' creations, the former Apple chief (and indeed many other top technology pioneers) appeared to have found enduring inspiration in LSD. Research shows that the psychedelic experience is, in fact, long lasting: a new study published last week found that people who took magic mushrooms (psilocybin) had long-term personality changes, becoming more open, more curious, more intellectually engaged and more creative. These personality shifts persisted more than a year after taking the drugs.

MORE:
Change" href="http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/03/want-to-feel-younger-more-open-magic-mushrooms-trigger-lasting-personality-change/">'Magic Mushrooms' Trigger Lasting Personality Change

But back to the notion that we "love" our iPhones. As the angry neuroscientists pointed out in their letter to the Times, brain scanning technology can't identify love just by looking at what regions are active. It's not that simple. The op-ed writer said that subjects' insular cortexes — a brain region associated with feelings of love and compassion — lit up in response the sound of their phones, just as they would have responded to the presence of a romantic partner or family member. Problem is, the insula also lights up when people feel disgust and in about one-third of brain scanning experiments in general.

The op-ed tried to make the point that iPhone users' feelings about their devices surpassed addiction and entered the territory of love. But the truth is that addiction and love are probably indistinguishable, at least in the brain — both feelings fill you with desire and light up your pleasure regions. (If love isn't doing that for you, then you're doing it wrong.)

And brains don't have "addiction pathways," as is so often suggested. Rather, the key regions involved in addiction have evolved to ensure that humans find pleasure and reward in experiences like eating, sex and child-rearing — enough so that we survive and pass on our genes. Drugs merely mimic the body's own brain chemicals that underlie the experience of joy, desire and connection — and perhaps using an iPhone.

MORE: 'Magic Mushrooms' Can Improve Psychological Health Long Term

Here's what LSD and iPhones do have in common: they make us feel divinely connected to our environments and to other people, they lift mood and bring us joy, they enrich humanity. Is that love? Maybe. But at their worst, drugs and computers can also create distance and trigger addiction, which can destroy human connection and affection.

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer for TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

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'Remarkable' Steve Jobs praised

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6 October 2011 Last updated at 12:57 GMT 'Do great work' was Steve Jobs' mantra In a speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs said: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life."

He added: "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work."

This approach, in the face of his battle with a rare form of hormonal cancer, has led to admiration from cancer charities.

His death was announced on Thursday morning just weeks after he stood down as CEO of Apple.

Steve Jobs was diagnosed with a rare neuroendocrine tumour in his pancreas in 2004, although the exact cause of his death remains unclear.

Unlike the most common form of pancreatic cancer, which is aggressive and has a poor survival rate, Steve Jobs' cancer is slow-growing and it is not unusual for people to live for many years after diagnosis.

Choices

Catherine Bouvier, director of the NET Patient Foundation, which represents people with neuroendocrine tumours, said: "For many people diagnosed with cancer can be the most horrific, life-changing experience.

"It's particularly hard for that to happen in public.

"Steve Jobs was remarkable."

But she said the charity also saw many patients who wanted to carry on with normal life throughout their illness.

She said the relatively slow progress of these cancers meant people often did decide to try to carry on with their normal life as much as possible.

However Laura Dillingham, of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: "Steve continued to work despite his diagnosis but not all cancer patients will want, or be able, to do this.

"The effect a cancer diagnosis and treatment has on a patient's ability to work depends on the type and stage of their cancer and how they are affected physically and emotionally by their treatment."

She said people had to make choices based on their individual situations.

"Evidence shows that for people who have experienced ill health or disability, remaining in or returning to work can actually help to promote recovery and lead to better health.

"Some people want to work through or after cancer treatment to restore normality, social contact and to get an income.

"For other people, it will be an opportunity to rethink their lives and consider retraining, retiring or taking early retirement."

She added: "It's important people living with cancer do what is right for them and aren't rushed into going back to work by their employer. Businesses can make a big difference to the lives of employees who've been affected by cancer by making a few small changes to their environment or working hours."

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'Remarkable' Steve Jobs praised

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
6 October 2011 Last updated at 12:57 GMT 'Do great work' was Steve Jobs' mantra In a speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs said: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life."

He added: "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work."

This approach, in the face of his battle with a rare form of hormonal cancer, has led to admiration from cancer charities.

His death was announced on Thursday morning just weeks after he stood down as CEO of Apple.

Steve Jobs was diagnosed with a rare neuroendocrine tumour in his pancreas in 2004, although the exact cause of his death remains unclear.

Unlike the most common form of pancreatic cancer, which is aggressive and has a poor survival rate, Steve Jobs' cancer is slow-growing and it is not unusual for people to live for many years after diagnosis.

Choices

Catherine Bouvier, director of the NET Patient Foundation, which represents people with neuroendocrine tumours, said: "For many people diagnosed with cancer can be the most horrific, life-changing experience.

"It's particularly hard for that to happen in public.

"Steve Jobs was remarkable."

But she said the charity also saw many patients who wanted to carry on with normal life throughout their illness.

She said the relatively slow progress of these cancers meant people often did decide to try to carry on with their normal life as much as possible.

However Laura Dillingham, of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: "Steve continued to work despite his diagnosis but not all cancer patients will want, or be able, to do this.

"The effect a cancer diagnosis and treatment has on a patient's ability to work depends on the type and stage of their cancer and how they are affected physically and emotionally by their treatment."

She said people had to make choices based on their individual situations.

"Evidence shows that for people who have experienced ill health or disability, remaining in or returning to work can actually help to promote recovery and lead to better health.

"Some people want to work through or after cancer treatment to restore normality, social contact and to get an income.

"For other people, it will be an opportunity to rethink their lives and consider retraining, retiring or taking early retirement."

She added: "It's important people living with cancer do what is right for them and aren't rushed into going back to work by their employer. Businesses can make a big difference to the lives of employees who've been affected by cancer by making a few small changes to their environment or working hours."

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