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Hookah / Narghile / Shisha / Goza Smoking Versus Cigarettes Smoking

Hookah — also called narghile, shisha and goza — is a water pipe. The device has been used for centuries in the Middle East and Asia to smoke tobacco. Now, hookah bars and cafes are popping up across the United States — fueled by the growing popularity of hookah smoking among teens and young adults.

Although many believe that the water in the hookah filters out all the "bad stuff" in the tobacco smoke, this isn't true.Puffing on a water pipe full of flavored tobacco may sound more glamorous than smoking a regular cigarette, but it's probably just as bad for your lungs, if not even more harmful, a Washington, DC researcher warns. According to a recent World Health Organization (WHO) advisory, a typical one-hour session of hookah smoking exposes the user to 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette. Even after passing through the water, the tobacco smoke produced still contains high levels of toxic compounds, including carbon monoxide, heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens). Hookah smoking also delivers significant levels of nicotine — the very addictive substance in tobacco.

Dr. Christopher Loffredo, director of the Cancer Genetics and Epidemiology Program at Georgetown University Medical Center, has been studying tobacco use in Egypt since 1997. In the past five years, he told Reuters Health, he's seen an increase in the use of hookahs among young people in both the Middle East and the United States.

Loffredo said he had originally thought hookah smoking was a trend limited to big cities like New York, but colleagues at a tobacco conference this July told him hookah use is also on the rise in small college towns in Colorado, Texas, Delaware and the Midwest.

Loffredo has published several studies on hookah use, including a report on how young Egyptian women are picking up the habit, which they see as more socially acceptable and healthier than cigarette smoking. He also found that genetic damage in the mouth tissue of hookah smokers was identical to that seen among cigarette smokers.

Nobody really knows what the risks of hookah smoking are compared to cigarettes, Loffredo noted, but clearly exposure to tobacco in a typical hookah session is substantial.

"The concern is that the session of smoking is very long. There's a social dimension to it. You're sitting with friends, typically," he explained. Sessions can last for up to three hours. "That's a lot of tobacco exposure in that time period."

"We're worried that hookah smokers could become addicted and could either turn to cigarettes or daily use of hookah devices for tobacco," Loffredo added.

Another concern, he noted, is that hookah use may represent a loophole around city and state laws banning smoking in public places.

Much is known about the harmful substances contained in cigarettes, Loffredo said, but there has been virtually no research on the content of tobaccos used in water pipes. "That kind of basic research really needs to be done so we have a better sense of what these health risks might be," he concluded.

Article:
- Quit Smoking,
- Health and Fitness

Comments

I don't know why they lump

by Anonymous - 2009-08-15 11:26

I don't know why they lump hookah vaporizers in with smoking. Smoking creates foul smelling, thick clouds which hang in the air, stain your surroundings and attach that smell to your clothes. Not being into cigarettes myself it's definitely something I wouldn't want when trying to eat.
However a hookah creates sweet smelling vapor which evaporates into the air. I "smoked" some shisha last night in my hookah and I can kind of smell the fruit punch scent. No need for Glade plug-ins and incense when you've got the hookah going lol.
If you start banning hookah bars you might as well toss out personal inhaler use in public too.