Study Says Hookah Worse Than Cigarettes

woman smoking hookah

Over the past several years hookah bars have become a growing trend, especially around college campuses. Originally a Middle Eastern practice, the water pipes are now featured at hundreds of bars and cafes nationwide and challenging the anti-tobacco movement in the United States. Although smoking rate were cut in half between 1965 and 2003, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, many young people are now smoking hookah, convinced it is safer than cigarettes. In fact, as many as 30 percent of US university student have tried hookah.

I would say it is less harmful than smoking a cigarette because of the fact it’s going through a vaporization process,” University of California student Travis Brown told ABC in 2011. “Versus when you are smoking a cigarette it’s just smoke going into your lungs.

Others are attracted to the hookah for its smooth flavors and pleasant smells. Thomas Eissenberg, a psychology professor who co-authored a hookah study at Virginia Commonwealth University, told USA Today the first time he tried hookah it smelled like cherry cough drops. As he has studied the water pipes, Eisenberg has grown concerned about young adults’ exposure to addictive nicotine.

Many water-pipe smokers tell me they know cigarettes are dangerous,” Eissenberg recently told Science News. “It’s written on the pack. They say, ‘I haven’t heard anything about water pipe smoking. It must be safe.’

But more studies are finding hookah is not only not safer than cigarettes, it can be deadlier. The tobacco used in hookah pipes is not less toxic than that in cigarettes, and—despite popular belief—water does filter toxins out of the smoke. Plus, hookah smokers generally inhale far more smoke than cigarette smokers.

According to Eisenberg, because the hookah is generally smoked for about 45 minutes at a time, its smoke delivers 35 times more tar than a cigarette, 15 times more carbon monoxide and 70 percent more nicotine. According to the California Department of Public Heallth, smoking a hookah 45 minutes is the equivalent of smoking 100 cigarettes.

Hookah may also subject smokers to higher levels of carcinogens than cigarettes. A recent study published in the Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention journal followed 13 smokers using hookah and cigarettes across a two-week period. During the first week, participants smoked hookah three times a day, during the second week they smoked 11 cigarettes daily. During each period researchers studied chemicals in the smokers’ urine and breath.

Based on the urine tests, participants benzene levels were higher when smoking hookah than when smoking cigarettes. Benzene inhalation is associated with both leukemia and lung cancer. The tests also revealed higher levels of pyrene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon linked to cancer and immune problems, while smoking hookah.

Hookah smokers are also putting themselves at risk of infectious disease. The mouthpieces are generally passed from one smoker to the next—whether in a hookah bar or off-campus apartment—making them a cesspool for bacteria and other communicable disease. Stagnant water in the smoke chambers can also be a breeding ground for microscopic organisms.