Waterpipe Smoking More Dangerous Than Cigarettes

Smoking from a hookah, or waterpipe, has become trendy among college-age Americans, in part because of the belief that hookahs are a safer alternative to smoking. In fact, the opposite is true, as a new study demonstrates.

Reuters reported Dec. 7 that researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University and the American University of Beirut studied a group of adult volunteers, comparing a 45-minute session of smoking from a waterpipe to the same period of time smoking a single cigarette.

The research demonstrated that hookahs delivered three times more carbon monoxide and about the same amount of nicotine as cigarettes. Hookahs also exposed users to 40 percent more smoke by volume than cigarettes, researchers found.

“This study can be used to dispel the myth that waterpipe tobacco smoking is a less lethal way of smoking tobacco,” said co-author Thomas Eissenberg, Ph.D., of Virginia Commonwealth University.

The study was published in the December 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.