Using a hookah to smoke tobacco poses a serious potential health hazard to smokers and others exposed to the smoke emitted.
Hookah tobacco and smoke contain numerous toxicants known to cause lung cancer, heart disease, and other diseases.
Even after it has passed through water, the smoke produced by a hookah contains high levels of toxic compounds, including carbon monoxide, heavy metals, and cancer-causing chemicals.
While many hookah smokers may consider this practice less harmful than smoking cigarettes,1 water pipe smoking delivers the addictive drug nicotine and is at least as toxic as cigarette smoke.
Due to the mode of smoking, including frequency of puffing, depth of inhalation, and length of the smoking session, hookah smokers may absorb higher concentrations of the toxins found in cigarette smoke.
A typical 1-hour-long hookah smoking session involves inhaling 100–200 times the volume of smoke inhaled with a single cigarette.
Hookah smokers are at risk for the same kinds of diseases as are caused by cigarette smoking, including oral cancer, esophageal and gastric carcinoma, lung cancer, reduced pulmonary function, and decreased fertility.
Irritation from exposure to tobacco juices increases the risk of developing oral cancers. The irritation by tobacco juice products among hookah smokers is likely greater than with pipe or cigar smoking because it is typically practiced more often and for longer periods of time with or without inhalation.
The charcoal used to heat tobacco in the hookah increases the health risks by producing high levels of carbon monoxide, metals, and cancer-causing chemicals.
Sharing a hookah may increase the risk of transmission of tuberculosis, viruses such as herpes or hepatitis, and other illnesses.
Babies born to women who smoked one or more water pipes a day during pregnancy have lower birth weights (were at least 100 grams less) than babies born to nonsmokers and are at an increased risk of respiratory diseases.
Secondhand smoke from hookahs poses a serious risk for nonsmokers.
NO MORE FOR ME
PORQUE NO VOY HACER ALGO QUE NO QUIERO QUE MIS HIJOS HAGAN.
PORQUE NO QUIERO AUMENTAR LAS POSIBILIDADES DE TENER QUE DECIR:
ME VOY A MORIR.
NO MAS NARGUILA.