Is it dangerous to smoke a hookah

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Life hacker finds out if hookah is really an innocent pleasure.

Hookah is a smoking device with flexible pipes, in which the smoke from the tobacco passes through the liquid, and only then goes to the lungs.

Typically, hookahs use flavored tobacco and charcoal, which sets the leaves on fire. But since the hookah is a relatively complex device, it has been modified several times.

For example, they came up with smoking mixtures in which there is no nicotine (this especially helped after the adoption of the law on restricting smoking in public places), and coal is not always used as fuel - it is replaced by a battery-powered heating element. In fact, these are hookah-shaped vapes - electronic devices for the use of nicotine and aromatic mixtures.

It doesn't really matter what exactly to smoke, because smoking is harmful.

There is nicotine in the hookah

If a person spends several minutes on a cigarette, then you will not part with a hookah so quickly. Smoking a hookah every day (and one “approach” lasts from 20 to 80 minutes) is like smoking 10 cigarettes. The amount of nicotine in the body will remain the same.

And if nicotine in a cigarette can still be counted, then with a hookah it is more difficult due to the fact that the amount of tobacco in one particular hookah and the duration of smoking are not regulated in any way, and the hookahs themselves are not standardized in any way: there are no regulations for the sizes of bowls and pipes.

One cigarette is about 12-15 puffs, and an hour of hookah is about 200. Try counting how many puffs you inhale when you smoke hookah and find out how many cigarettes you have in your lungs.

Due to nicotine, hookah does not help to quit smoking: people with addiction receive their dose, and people without addiction begin to feel nicotine hunger.

More smoke from the hookah

Nicotine is not the only dangerous substance in a hookah. The smoke contains other harmful impurities. For example, carbon monoxide, which is formed during the combustion of coal, metals, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, benzene - more than 27 carcinogenic substances.

The smoke passes through the water, which is supposed to purify it. Therefore, due to water vapor, the concentration of many hazardous substances in hookah clouds is weaker than in cigarette smoke, but they are still there. Water is not an industrial filter, impurities remain and enter the lungs. The same nicotine is filtered by less than 5%. The amount of smoke also plays a role.

From one hookah, the lungs drive through about 90,000 ml of smoke, from a cigarette - 500-600 ml.

By the way, for passive smokers, this smoke is just as dangerous as for those who smoke. Just standing next to hookahs is like having a little smoke too.

Although some studies claim that hookahs are several times less dangerous than cigarettes, this does not mean that they do not threaten health at all. On this issue, researchers rather agree: if you smoke a hookah for a long time, over several years, the consequences will be so-so.

Hookahs cause diseases

Hookah smoke in the long term affects the body in the same way as cigarette smoke. It causes many diseases, the risk of which is much higher in smokers than in those who do not indulge in anything:

• Diseases of the heart and blood vessels. It is because of them that people in the world die most often. Smoking narrows blood vessels, because of this, the pressure rises, blood does not flow to the heart, that is, hypertension and coronary heart disease come.
• Cancer. Hookahs increase the risk of lung, oral, stomach and even bladder cancer.
• Infections. Viruses, bacteria and fungal infections hide in the tubes, and when the smoker inhales, the steam picks up and delivers them immediately to the mouth, bronchi and lungs, even if using a disposable mouthpiece. In addition, the upper respiratory tract is less resistant to other infections.
• Consequences for future children. Hookah should not be pregnant, because women who smoke, children are born weaker and weigh less.

Hookahs without nicotine are also dangerous

Even if there is no nicotine in the hookah mix, there is smoke in it. And if not smoke, then steam, like in electronic cigarettes, which contains glycerin or propylene glycol. We have already raised the question of the dangers of electronic cigarettes and nicotine-free mixtures. In short, the situation is this: there are still few studies, but it is already clear that such smoking is unsafe.

What does this all mean for us? If you smoke hookah on a regular basis and think about your health, you need to tie or at least smoke less often and less. And if at a party you have to choose between a cigarette or a hookah for the company, then it is better to choose a dance floor.