I was reading the obituary to the American comedian Bob Newhart who has just died at 94 and one statement puzzled me . "He developed polycythemia at he age of 40or so from smoking and sudsquently gave up smoking". Is there any proven connection from smoking and PV?
smoking and PV: I was reading the obituary to the... - MPN Voice
smoking and PV
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Yes. He most likely had secondary polycythemia from smoking. It's not considered cancer and can go away when you discontinue smoking.
By coincidence there's a post by jamieb977 from 2 days ago with answers discussing secondary polycythemia and it's link with smoking.
This is the recent thread on 2ndary Polycythemia and smoking:
healthunlocked.com/mpnvoice...
Note as discussed there, PV (Polycythemia Vera) is not the smoking version, that is the P without the V.
there is allegedly a connection with smoking and PV, I don’t know much about it but it may not just be secondary, and of course smoking with PV is a very bad idea
I would guess the PV connection would be part of the general risk for all cancers with smoking, while the P version has a direct biological link to short term smoking effects.
What’s a P version?
P is Polycythemia. PV is (Polycythemia Vera). Vera means True or more precisely here, primary.
They use to sometimes call it Polycythemia (Rubra) Vera which best I can tell derives from Rubra referring to red color as in excess of red (blood cells)
I also know of a person who has been on long term steroid etc use for chronic asthma and developed PV whose specialist related it his meds.