Image: CBS
If you’ve always heard when people say smoking cigarette’s bad for you, a new study suggests that smoking hooka is worse for you than smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day.
The study, publish in the journal Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, studied 13 subjects who smoked from water pipes three times a day, and also smoked about 11 cigarettes a day.
The participants were instructed to only smoke hookah for four days of the study, and a week later, to only smoke cigarettes. Researchers studied the chemicals in their urine and breath.
They found that the water pipes delivered more dangerous chemicals than cigarette smoking. According to Science News:
“Urine tests revealed that the volunteers had higher benzene levels when smoking hookahs than when smoking cigarettes. Benzene inhalation is associated with leukemia and lung cancer. The volunteers’ tests also showed higher levels of pyrene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon or PAH, when smoking the hookah. Similar amounts of the probable human carcinogen acrylamide and the PAH phenanthrene showed up during cigarette or hookah smoking. Exposure to PAHs is linked to cancer and immune problems.”
The study indicates that the profile of chemicals that are extracted when smoking tobacco through a hookah is different than those that come from smoking a cigarette. They suggest that the benzene in the the hookah smoke can increase the risk of leukemia – cancer of the while blood cells.
So, if you’re about to join your friends for a hookah session, think about what it’s going to do to your body first.
(Source: Business Insider)
