Was Alex a heavy smoker and drinker? - Alex Trebek Discussion

[–] Destinata (2600) 5 years ago

My husband wasn't. Another friend was a lifelong Christian and didn't have those vices. I'm wondering if it's some of those preservatives they put in our food, since the demographics include anyone in the modern world.

PS: It's on the rise, just when people have been tossing their cigs away and drinking more in moderation. It's something we've been exposed to over years that's either just come along, or, because we live longer, it's just what gets us.

My guess is it's more fat and refined sugar -- all the fast foods and snacks we eat without even thinking.

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[–] liscarkat (16508) 5 years ago

I don't think Swayze was either. He just got screwed.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Swayze was a well known heavy smoker. He screwed himself.

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[–] TMC-4 (19408) 5 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Swayze#Illness_and_death

Swayze had been a heavy smoker for years, and he once admitted to smoking 60 cigarettes a day.[47] He stated that his chain smoking probably "had something to do with" the development of his disease. Photos taken of a gaunt Swayze in the months before his death showed him continuing to smoke.[48][49]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNE7SNUtWPA

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[–] user111 (358) 3 years ago

Jesus. He was still inhaling those cancer sticks while he had late stage cancer? That explains everything.

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[–] liscarkat (16508) 3 years ago

Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes when you spend your life sucking crap into your lungs dozens of times a day.

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[–] AmeriGirl26 (12280) 5 years ago

It could be a number of factors, and smoking and drinking could have contributed to it. Alex was a different person in his youth, if any of you watched the early Jeopardy clips, and it's possible he did some of that in the past. It could also be due to genetics, or some cause we still have not discovered yet. Either way, it appears the cells on the head of Alex's pancreas have mutated and multiplied out of control into tumors, and if it's at stage 4, cancer cells have spread to other parts of his body as well, which is scary and saddening all at once.

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[–] sslssg (27633) 5 years ago

Just out of curiousity, what is your deal with trying to put the blame of disease on drug use or poor life choices? You did the same on Selma Blair's page as well.

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[–] TMC-4 (19408) 5 years ago

Why should it matter to you personally!? The fact of the matter is that certain diseases such as pancreatic cancer are more than often brought on due to poor life choices. If somebody has lung cancer or emphysema for example, is it wrong to automatically wonder if that person is a long time smoker? You just don't mysteriously get that kind of cancer. Now maybe you think that I'm "victim blaming" or I'm lacking in sympathy. But it also seems irresponsible and unrealistic to not probe into why and how we get sick.

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[–] sslssg (27633) 5 years ago

I guess I'm taking it personally because my uncle died of pancreatic cancer 3 years ago and wasn't a smoker or a heavy drinker, and like I said on Selma Blair's page, I have MS. It's a horrible disease and it's not brought on by drugs or alcohol.

As for cancer, there is nothing really mysterious about it. Two of the biggest risk factors are age and gender. I appreciate probing into how and why we get sick, but you've just touched a nerve with these two diseases with me.

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[–] TMC-4 (19408) 5 years ago

On the same token however, look at somebody like Richard Pryor, who was infamous for his debauchery and latter contracted MS. Of course, I'm not 100% sure Richard Pryor wouldn't have gotten MS had he lived a clean life. I would like to believe that he had genetic predisposition to MS and his lifestyle choices was the proverbial trigger.

And as I said before, it was widely documented that Michael Landon and Patrick Swayze were big smokers and drinkers. So you can't say that those aren't reasonably possible factors for getting pancreatic cancer.

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[–] Destinata (2600) 5 years ago

No one knows why pancreatic cancer is on the rise. It used to be a fairly rare cancer, and now we're seeing more of it. So far the reasons seem mysterious.

Why are we seeing more diabetes, speaking of things pancreatic? More starchy foods in our diets? More fast foods with breading and French fries?

Why are we seeing more illnesses having to do with the autonomic nervous system? -- and the pancreas is part of that system. It's no where near as simple as you're trying to make it.

If there's an ANS component, why is the autonomic nervous system -- the basic infrastructure of the body -- so little understood even now by physicians? You'd think they'd want to know a little something about it and would have been studying it a bit harder for the past 100 years -- the era of more or less "modern" medicine. But nope. So pancreatic cancer patients wind up with ANS symptoms and it's just a mystery to the oncologists. Ask me how I know.

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[–] vranger (444) 3 years ago

The incidence of pancreatic cancer cases is NOT on the rise. It's long been about 3% of cancer cases. The percentage of cancer deaths attributed to pancreatic cancer is on the rise, but there is a positive reason for that. Many other forms of cancer are being successfully treated these days, so as their "share" decreases, the incurable cancers get more of the percentage.

Pancreatic isn't really incurable. The danger of that disease is people only start to notice symptoms after it is in its late stages, where every cancer is difficult to treat successfully.

And yes, heavy drinking, but PARTICULARLY smoking, are major causes of cancer (and heart disease). Since we're in a movie site, go back to IMDB and look at the cause of death for actors whose careers were big in the "heavy smoking decades". A shocking percentage died from lung cancer and other lung related illness (of which heart disease qualifies ... since low oxygen flow to the heart damages the heart) ... plus other cancers.

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[–] Destinata (2600) 3 years ago

Mercy. Well, I've been told.

My husband has neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer. That one responds well to a therapy that Trump allowed to be used in the US -- it was quite successful for neuroendocrine types overseas, but hadn't been approved yet in America; Trump okayed it and other such drugs for end stage patients. My husband underwent the therapy and the cancer is now stable. It's the most successful treatment for metastatic neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer, but it's no cure. They thought they'd gotten it all with the surgery, but they hadn't. And he'd gotten it early -- just a little lymph node involvement. No symptoms, really. Surgeon swore he'd gotten it all.

He wasn't a heavy drinker. Not a smoker. Heavy on fruits and veggies. Killed it on the treadmill. Never worried; no stress.

Astonishing number of pancreatic cancer patients amongst the rich and famous. Oh, yeah. Not that many. You just hear of more.

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[–] vranger (444) 3 years ago

Well, I wasn't trying to "tell you", it's just that I've had two friends in recent years victimized by pancreatic, and happened to do a lot of reading. Sadly, nothing I researched was of assistance. :-(

And no, it's not fair for someone with a healthy lifestyle to get it, but it happens. My MIL got lung cancer late, and never smoked a day in her life. However, there was plenty of second-hand around. I certainly hope treatment continues positively for your husband. There are three programs in process (Stanford, NIH Maryland, and Israel) that may turn out to be absolute cures. Hopefully one will come into the mainstream before long.

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[–] albertmar (93) 5 years ago

It's not really putting the blame on someone. Some people are interested in the science behind predisposition.

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[–] sslssg (27633) 5 years ago

I understand that, and like I said above I'm a little touchy on this subject. I also wasn't being accusatory, I was honestly curious why TMC-4 was asking the questions they asked. The links showed many different causes, but they just focused on poor behaviour.

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[–] TMC-4 (19408) 5 years ago

My father had high blood pressure and latter died from a heart attack at the age of 69. He drank and smoked for much of my life. Should I get personally upset if somebody brings up alcohol abuse and smoking as a likely factor in getting a hypertension induced heart attack? Of course, those can't be the sole causes of heart attacks or hypertension in general, but it would be ignorant to not take those things into account.

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[–] sslssg (27633) 5 years ago

I get that. I wasn't attacking you, I just wanted to know why out of all the possible causes listed in those articles you chose smoking and drinking. I know that tone is not indicated when typing words and so I'm sorry if I came across other than I intended.

Your first question was why should it matter to me? I did answer that and I will further my answer to include personal upset so you might understand my state of mind at the moment.

I was a little offended with what you posted on Selma Blair's page because of my own personal experience. That's on me. When I was diagnosed with MS I went through a whole blame period. A lot of it was what did I do to bring this on? There were a lot of irrational thoughts in my head. I asked a lot of questions of doctors and read all I could. Frankly they don't know what causes it. I'm getting worse and it's scary because they can do nothing about it. When I read your links about her drug use and that there had to be a reason for someone to contract MS, it was a blow. I had guilt and fear and anger over why I'm stuck with this horrible disease and here is someone on the internet saying that we might bring it upon ourselves? (My interpretation my not reflect your intent) and then I see you posting on a disease that took a beloved uncle that I was super close to and suggesting it was his fault. I wasn't angry with you, I just wanted to know why you were simplifying the diseases that changed my life.

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[–] Adam60z (3749) 3 years ago

I think he drank and he didn't do exercise. https://kiwireport.com/curious-interesting-facts-jeopardy-host-alex-trebek/
I think he should have gone the holistic route. Obviously with chemo the cure is worse than the disease.

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[–] vranger (444) 3 years ago

Holistic is the route Michael Landon chose. He died VERY quickly. Holistic does NOTHING to reverse the course of cancer. But if you like donating money to holistic quacks instead of leaving it to your family, it's a great way to waste it.

And chemo CAN cure cancer. A friend of ours had Stage Four Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and was given 90 days or less. That was 12 years ago now, and she's still with us. Whatever her oncologist did with her chemo was incredibly effective. If I was diagnosed tomorrow, I'd be going STRAIGHT to him.

Luckily, we'll have some treatments coming in the next few years which will replace chemo and be a true cure for most cancers. Stanford, NIH Maryland, and a program in Israel are all doing custom immune activations that show great promise.

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[–] Adam60z (3749) 3 years ago

Everyone must make their own decision on how to treat their diseases..if they have them. But in general I'm against invasive procedures. I think the new immunotherapy is better. I mean if you're giving examples, what about Lindsay Wagner, Suzanne Summers, and Olivia Hussey? I personally would not do chemo; I would consider surgery if it's operable. Anyway luckily I'm cancer free as far as I know.

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[–] vranger (444) 3 years ago

The typical treatment plan is to remove tumors surgically where possible, but they still do chemo to clear out anything else that surgery might miss.

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[–] sut6432 (2832) 3 years ago

How about the fact that he was almost 80 years old?

When you get to be that age shit goes wrong. Even if he drank and smoked all those years, he still was able to live a long life. Something will get us all in the end, and at different times in our lives.

There are some people who smoke and drink religiously and live to be in their 90’s...and there are health nuts who run marathons and eat nothing but salads every meal who drop dead in their 20’s or 30’s.

Sure, we all have a better shot at a long life if we take care of ourselves and avoid things like smoking or excessive drinking, but that’s certainly no guarantee.

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[–] ebhaynz (3525) 3 years ago

I think it's very possible that since 30% of all pancreatic cancers are smokers then probably another large % is due to 2nd hand smoke they were subjected to, since it wasn't all that long where about half the population used to smoke.
I think the rest is just age and inactivity. Note I'm basically a firm believer that even if you have a poor diet if you keep your weight down(where you're at worst overweight but not obese) and exercise very religiously you can dodge major diseases for a long, long time.
Sadly, I'm seeing many obese/morbidly obese people dying before their 60. It's usually the same story, they got addicted to eating tons of junk food and a major organ fails. I used to be just over the obese line(210lbs.) but have been exercising very regularly for 11 years and now pretty comfortable at 185lbs. Makes a huge difference I recommend to anyone reading this who is obese they can start making small changes TODAY and slowly increase activity, eating a little less and fix almost all their health problems pretty quick. GL if this applies to you!

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[–] vranger (444) 3 years ago

My MIL never smoked in her life, developed lung cancer late ... and she was certain it was due to second-hand smoke over many years. She didn't consider it to be very fair. :-(

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[–] samoanjoes (50912) 3 years ago

You can develop pancreatic cancer from a poor diet.

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