Small Hookahs and Carbon Monoxide

[mgcsinc]

Earlier today I was searching some legitimate scientific resources to see if the new scare-tactic of claiming that smoking a hookah is like smoking up to a pack of cigs has any empirical support, but I haven't been able to find anything yet. I did find one interesting study, though; this is the abstract:

"We studied the carbon monoxide (CO) fractions in hookah and cigarette smoke, using a carbon monoxide micro smokerlyzer (model EC50, BEDFONT, U.K.). Mean carbon monoxide fractions (% by volume) of hookah smoke, using domestic charcoal were 0.38 +/- 0.07 (large hookah; unfiltered); 1.40 +/- 0.43 (small hookah; unfiltered); 0.34 +/- 0.06 (large hookah; filtered); 1.36 +/- 0.35 (small hookah; filtered) and 0.41 +/- 0.08 (cigarette smoke). The highest fractions were obtained with small size hookah and increase in size of hookah (i.e., volume of air in water base, fire bowl volume, pipe length, etc.) reduced the CO fraction significantly (P < 0.001). The fractions of cigarette lie between large and small hookah. The fractions vary slightly with different varieties of tobacco, e.g., CO fractions with Dera wala tobacco are significantly low (P < 0.05). Use of commercial charcoal gives significant rise in CO fractions (P < 0.001). Comparison of filtered and unfiltered smoke shows no significant difference in values. We conclude that the CO hazard is as high with hookah smoking as with cigarette smoking.

Sajid KM, Akhter M, Malik GQ. Carbon monoxide fractions in cigarette and hookah (hubble bubble) smoke. J Pak Med Assoc. 1993 Sep;43(9):179-82."

To summarize: "small" hookahs give you more CO (carbon monoxide) when you smoke them - .38 % of air volume for a 'large' hookah v. 1.4% for a 'small' hookah. I thought I would post this because of all the discussion of small (e.g. MYA QT) v. large hookahs that I've seen going on here. Now, I'm not sure how much of a difference such a difference in CO volume actually makes, but there has been some suggestion here that CO contributes to some of the ill effects of smoking hookah for too long. Does anyone find that their small hookahs are harder to smoke for a long period of time than their large ones? I also don't know what the researchers used as lengths for their prototypical 'large' and 'small' hookahs, but I should have the actual article within a week, so I'll post details then.

(Sorry if anyone has mentioned any of this research before - I searched but I couldn't find a reference to it)

[SanguineSolitude]

why on earth would that be? *thinks for a while*

maybe... fuck i dont know. doesnt make sense to me. must be something to do with the proximity of the coal, but its being inhaled down the stem either way, and assuming the hookah is sealed which it should be, then why would size affect anything. hmm

[skiracerj1]

Very interesting and kudos on the research, that said I've never noticed a difference between my qt and my friends 36" egyptian in terms of long session smokability or buzz. One line that kinda makes me wonder about the cigarette comparison is the "using domestic charcoal" line. This to me means they used a BBQ briquette or something similar which would skew the results quite a bit. I could be wrong, but i dont think you would phrase a syrian style finger coal or japanese coal, or even a "holland" quicklite as domestic. This wouldnt really affect the percent differece between a small and large hookah but would raise the hookah CO2 to cigarette comparison. Do they have list of materials or anything specific like that anywhere in the research?

[Johnny_D]

Skiracerj1 I think that hit the proverbial nail on it's head...

What coal is used? 10:1 it's a BBQ Brickquette or something similar.

JD

[mgcsinc]

Not so sure about that; note that later on they say "Use of commercial charcoal gives significant rise in CO fractions (P < 0.001)." - there, I assumed for sure that they were referring to charcoal used for this specific purpose, but I guess I'll see when I get the actual article.

[SanguineSolitude]

"We conclude that the CO hazard is as high with hookah smoking as with cigarette smoking. "
so was their conclusion that smoking hookah has as much co as smoking cigs? is this in one puff? over the course of the entire session or what? i dont understand what this was trying to prove. id like to know what charcoal and shisha they were using as well as whether they were smoking it correctly or using one of those machines that constantly inhales. this would cause the shisha to burn rather than smoke and would increase the co produced. why cant we ever get these researchers to get hookah smokers to help out with designing a realistic experiment.

this seems not a great resource.

[mgcsinc]

Well, as I said, I'll have details soon enough, though I'm on your side in terms of not trusting it right away. But note that the part of the research I was discussing (the difference between large and small hookahs) is a little more independent of the experimental design, as the same setup would have been used for both types of hookahs. Also, note that these researchers were in Pakistan. I'm not sure (I really have no idea) about hookah culture in Pakistan, but that might help make you trust the results more or less...

[skiracerj1]

The wording of the research is typical in that whoever wrote it clearly went to med school without taking an english class or at least not a technical writing class. It does raise some questions i never thought about before though, but it is rather vague, let us know when you get that full report for sure

[Sonthert]

Sounds perfectly reasonable, to me.

Natural, untreated coals contain something like around 12,500 ppm sulfur (responsible for increasing carbon monoxide production by coals, as I figure it), while Japanese coals contain like 1000 ppm sulfur. Well, its like 12x as much in natural coals. Fingers and bulk charcoal are going to have the higher sulfur number, thats why they are so cheap. The charcoal powder is processed to remove the sulfur in Japanese coals. Other coals...unknown. If the ash from your charcoal is gray-white-yellowish-orangish, those are from sulfur. A black, powdery ash would indicate low sulfur content. Orange would probably be the highest sulfur content, then yellow, then white, with grey being above black.

[EvansLight]

... this thread, and eric, make my head hurt XD even more than the co from smoking

[Captain Courageous]

Trying to justify the facts of that finding would only make my little mind implode in on itself if I try :cry: I am all confused by this thread... so I can't even begin to give my 2 cents on this... can't even figure how to get 'em outta my piggy bank at this point.