Smoking tobacco through waterpipe as harmful as puffing on cigarette

A new study has shown that smoking tobacco through a waterpipe exposes the user to the same

toxicants - carbon monoxide and nicotine - as puffing on a cigarette, which could lead to

nicotine addiction and heart disease.

Buzz up!
The belief among some waterpipe users is that this method of smoking tobacco delivers less

tar and nicotine than regular cigarette smoking
and has fewer adverse health effects.


However, the new study led by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher has challenged

this belief.

"The results are important because they provide concrete, scientific evidence that

contradicts the oft-repeated myth that waterpipe tobacco smoking does not involve users

inhaling the same harmful chemicals that cigarette smokers do," said principal investigator

Thomas Eissenberg, Ph.D., professor in the VCU Department of Psychology.

"We hope that these results will be used by physicians and public health officials to inform

waterpipe tobacco smokers that they risk tobacco-induced nicotine addiction and

cardiovascular disease," he added.

Eissenberg along with Alan Shihadeh, Sc.D., associate professor at the American University

of Beirut in Lebanon, compared the toxicant exposure associated with waterpipe smoking and

cigarette smoking among 31 participants between the ages of 18 and 50.

Each participant completed two 45-minute sessions, one in which they smoked tobacco using a

waterpipe and the other in which they smoked a single cigarette. The level of nicotine and

carbon monoxide in the participants' blood was measured, as was heart rate, puff number and

puff volume.

They found that on average, the levels of carbon monoxide to which participants were exposed

were higher when they were smoking a waterpipe than when they were smoking a cigarette.

Specifically, the peak waterpipe COHb level - amount of carbon monoxide found bound to red

blood cells - was three times that observed for cigarette.

However, they observed that the peak nicotine levels did not differ - but there was exposure

to nicotine through both methods of tobacco smoke.

Examining the number and volume of each puff showed that compared with smoking a cigarette,

waterpipe tobacco smoking involved inhalation of about 48 times more smoke.

The study has been published in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive

Medicine.