Fifty-six cigarettes. That's what one 45-minute session of hookah smoking feels like to your lungs, according to a recent study in the Journal of Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
In the study, researchers examined two groups of people: one group that reported smoking hookah at least two times per month, and another that smoked at least five cigarettes per week. The researchers then had the first group smoke a hookah for 45 minutes—the length of an average session—while members of the second group smoked one cigarette each. Pressure sensors measured how much smoke each person inhaled. (More from Men's Health: Why Are Men Still Smoking?)
The results? The cigarette-smoking group inhaled 71.2 milliliters of smoke, while the hookah group inhaled 830 milliliters (the equivalent of about two cans of soda).
"What concerns me the most is that these were relatively inexperienced hookah smokers," says Thomas Eissenberg, Ph.D., Director of Clinical Behavioral Pharmacology at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the study. "Hookah tobacco contains the addictive drug nicotine, so users run the risk of getting hooked. The more comfortable users are smoking from the pipe, the more smoke they inhale." The risks don't stop there, either: Water pipes are also hosts for viruses like herpes, hepatitis, and tuberculosis, according to a study by Danish researchers.
Conclusions like those run counter to the popular notion that smoking hookah tobacco is safer than smoking cigarettes. "There are dramatically more cancer-causing chemicals and carbon monoxide in hookah smoke than there are in cigarette smoke," Eissenberg says. "When it comes to other toxins cigarettes contain such as tar and heavy metals, hookah may contain more or less. We simply don't know."
Even abstaining from a puff or two might not help if you happen to be sitting in the same room as your hookah-smoking buddies. "There is no reason to believe the second-hand effects of hookah smoke," Eissenberg says, "differ from those of cigarette smoke."
Trying to kick the habit? Find out how one Men's Health reader managed to quit smoking cold turkey. Or if you prefer a more detailed strategy, check out our kick-ash plan to give up cigarettes for good.
— Dana Leigh Smith
Thanks to Rodale Inc. / Men's Health Blog
http://blogs.menshealth.com/health-headlines/dont-get-hooked-on-hookah/2011/06/07
1 comment:
The research states that the inhaled smoke pressure is measured. I would question this research on the basis that factual statements in regard to chemicals, nicotine, etc have not been measured accurately by the researcher. Hookah smokers are aware that the amount of "chemicals" in their shisha smoke is dependent upon the quality of the coals they use. There is also herbal shisha which has no tar or nicotine levels. Perhaps more research is required before statements about how unhealthy it is to smoke hookah are made. Research such as how many middle easterners have died from smoking hookah or complications from smoking hookah is necessary to asses the actual damage. The control group is there .... why not do the research appropriately?
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