14 DAY TRIAL // A new fashionable way of smoking seems to grow more and more popular worldwide in recent days - smoking cigarettes has already become obsolete and out of fashion. The trendy way of smoking nowadays is through a hookah - more exactly, inhaling tobacco through a waterpipe. Hookah fans say that inhaling tobacco this way is far less harmful for one's health than common way of smoking cigarettes. But they are completely wrong, caution Christopher Loffredo, a Georgetown University researcher.
Christopher Loffredo, Ph.D., Director of the Cancer Genetics and Epidemiology program at Georgetown University Medical Center warned: "People who use these devices don't realize that they could be inhaling what is believed to be the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes in one typical 30-60 minute session with a waterpipe, because such a large quantity of pure, shredded tobacco is used."
Those who defend hookah smoking method believe that the water which is used for the waterpipe absorbs tobacco toxins and - consequently - makes smoking less harmful. But the researcher cautions that hookah fans fail to realize the fact that the tar in tobacco is not water soluble, which means that it is completely absorbed into the smoker's lungs.
"People think the water absorbs the toxins, and that is true to some extent if the toxins are water soluble, but tar isn't, and tar contains the carcinogens. We believe that, compared to the typical cigarette smoker, waterpipe smokers are exposed to larger total amounts of nicotine, carbon monoxide and certain other toxins," Loffredo pointed out.
Moreover, due to the fact that tobacco can burn at rather low temperatures, there is a high risk for the smoker to inhale it more deeply in his respiratory tract. Consequently, Loffredo warns again: "because the tobacco is burning at a lower temperature, it is more tolerable to inhale deeply, and in fact you need more force to pull air through the high resistance of the water pathway. That means the tobacco smoke can be penetrating deeper in a person's respiratory tract than cigarette smoke does. The damage could be even worse than seen in cigarette smokers, but we haven't done studies long enough to quantify the true cancer risk."