smoking and PV

[catkinspolymer]

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?

[clubdino]

Yes. He most likely had secondary polycythemia from smoking. It's not considered cancer and can go away when you discontinue smoking.

[DJK12]

By coincidence there's a post by jamieb977 from 2 days ago with answers discussing secondary polycythemia and it's link with smoking.

[EPguy]

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.

[ainslie]

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

[EPguy in reply to ainslie]

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.

[ainslie in reply to EPguy]

What’s a P version?

[EPguy in reply to ainslie]

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)

leukaemia.org.au/blood-canc...

[ainslie in reply to EPguy]

Thanks for info on what P means and also thanks for explaining what PV means, after 14 years with PV I now know 😂

[AnBee]

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.