Hookah delivers 25 times more tobacco than cigarette

Hookahs, or communal pipes, deliver 25 times more tobacco than one cigarette, says a new study by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Researchers reviewed past scientific studies to prove that compared with a single cigarette, one hookah session delivers approximately 125 times the smoke, 25 times the tar, 2.5 times the nicotine and 10 times the carbon monoxide.

“Our results show that hookah tobacco smoking poses real health concerns and that it should be monitored more closely than it is currently,” said lead author Brian A. Primack, M.D., Ph.D., assistant vice chancellor for health and society in Pitt’s Schools of the Health Sciences. “For example, hookah smoking was not included in the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey System questionnaire, which assesses cigarette smoking, chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes and many other forms of substance abuse.”

Dr. Primack and his co-authors note that comparing a hookah smoking session to smoking a single cigarette is a complex comparison to make because of the differences in smoking patterns. A frequent cigarette smoker may smoke 20 cigarettes per day, while a frequent hookah smoker may only participate in a few hookah sessions each day.

It’s not a perfect comparison because people smoke cigarettes and hookahs in very different ways,” said Dr. Primack. “We had to conduct the analysis this way–comparing a single hookah session to a single cigarette–because that’s the way the underlying studies tend to report findings. So, the estimates we found cannot tell us exactly what is ‘worse.’ But what they do suggest is that hookah smokers are exposed to a lot more toxicants than they probably realize. After we have more fine-grained data about usage frequencies and patterns, we will be able to combine those data with these findings and get a better sense of relative overall toxicant load.”

The research team also notes that these findings may be helpful in providing estimates for various official purposes.

Category: Health alert, Top Story