Is Hookah Bad For You

Somewhere around the 15^th century, India got a little more popularity for having invented the hookah! Hookahs were looked upon as a grand status symbol for the Indian aristocrats then, and eventually grew popular in Iran, Egypt and Turkey. Hookah lounges are now noticed on almost every busy street in the world and is quickly turning in the youth’s most favorite vice. Just like ordinary water pipes, hookahs are stuffed with shisha (flavored tobacco). The smoke is passed through water for the purpose of cooling and filtering it. Though many hookah smokers are under the delusion that it is a lot safer than smoking cigarettes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that smoking hookahs increases the risk of cancer as much as that of smoking cigarettes. CDC has managed to compile a list of twelve possible ill side-effects of smoking hookahs. Despite being passed through water, hookah still contains toxic compounds such as carbon monoxide, heavy metals, and other chemicals that cause cancer. Continue reading to be informed of the health risks attached to hookahs.

Hookah Health Risks

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been disseminating several eye openers with regard to the negative effects of smoking hookahs. It points out the fact that a standard one hour session is equivalent to inhaling around 200 times the volume inhaled with just one cigarette! It is said one session of hookah is as bad as consuming 36 times the tar inhaled in one cigarette!
Moreover, the recycled smoke from the water pipes is nothing more than a combination of tobacco smoke and the smoke emanating from the fuel. Since the pipe does not filter out any of these toxins, smoking hookah becomes immensely dangerous for health.
An amalgamation of tar, carbon monoxide, heavy metals and several toxic compounds is what best defines the smoke that gets into a habitual hookah smoker. Rich in carcinogens, this smoke may lead one to contract oral cancer.
In order to fuel the heat necessary for burning the tobacco, charcoal or wood cinders are used. Such combustion results in the release of hazardous chemicals like carbon monoxide! Hence, there is no reason why we should believe hookahs to be harmless!
Infectious diseases can be easily spread through sharing of a single pipe of the hookah. Big groups of smokers lounge around a sofa and pass on the pipe without using the disposable mouthpiece. As such, the possibility of contracting diseases such as herpes and tuberculosis runs high. Each smoker must use his/her own mouthpiece to avoid infections. Emphysema, lungs diseases, shortness of breath and chronic cough are other dangerous diseases commonly passed on in this manner.
The amount of cellular chromosomal damage produced inside the mouth soon after hookah smoking is not very different from that of cigarette smoking. As such, in no way can smoking hookah be deemed as a less intimidating act.
Hookah smokers take deep breaths, as they inhale since it has been cooled after being passed through water. As the smoker pulls hard from the pipe, the smoke goes deep directly into the lungs. This is a faster way to contract a dreadful lung disease.
As for pregnant ladies, they ought to keep their distance from hookahs. Inhalation of this smoke is likely to result in low weight babies.
Hookah pipes tend to often be equally addictive as cigarettes. Smokers are liable to being physically and psychologically dependent on these silent killers.

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