Filtering?

[DarthHookah]

does anyone have any proof that the water filters anything from the smoke? im of the belief that it doesnt filter shit, and that it simply cools the smoke, if even a little.

i think it is not right to promote these ideas if they havent been proven.

[skiracerj1]

I;t may not filter much, but I cant a see a way that it couldn't filter out some of the larger particulates in the smoke, once they get in the water they fall out while the lighter smoke rises out. I'm by no mean saying that it filters out a majority of the things in the smoke, or if it filters anything bad out, but it has to filter something out.

[mgcsinc]

In my adventure around the internet the other day looking for research about hookah smoking, I came across one piece of research (probably the single best empirical paper I found) that claims to answer your question:

"The effects of puff frequency and the presence of water in the bowl on NFDPM [nicotine-free dry particulate matter, AKA "tar"] and nicotine are shown in Figs. 5 and 6. As shown in Fig. 5, the puffing frequency was found to be a significant factor with respect to NFDPM, while the presence of water showed no discernible impact at either puffing frequency. In contrast to this, Fig. 6 shows that the nicotine content is strongly affected by the presence of water in the bowl, but not by the puffing frequency. It appears that the water preferentially strips a large fraction of the water-soluble nicotine, though since the water affects not only the smoke aerosol, but also the combustion process via the previously noted bubbling induced ‘‘drumming effect’’, the conclusion must remain tentative."

( Shihadeh A. Investigation of mainstream smoke aerosol of the argileh water pipe. Food Chem Toxicol 2003;41:143–52. http://webfea-lb.fea.aub.edu.lb/aerosol/do...gilehpaper1.pdf )

So basically, these researchers find that all the water accomplishes is to filter out some of the nicotine, but not the tar. In reality, there was a small increase in tar without the water, but it was apparently non-significant. I lean on the side of trusting this research because it was done in a way that mimics real-life hookah smoking surprisingly closely (three kings coal and all). Other jems from the paper are that the coals they used contributed quite little to the amount of tar given off, and that one 50-minute hookah session has the nicotine equivalent of one cigarette and the tar content of 20 cigarettes (hence the oft-heard hookah = pack of cigs claim). They are careful to note, however, that the lower temperatures used during hookah smoking likely produce a less-cancerous smoke, which is good.

I suggest you all navigate to the pdf file and read the thing for yourselves - it was actually a pretty fun read. Oh, and it certainly won't keep me from smoking my delightful hookah

[DarthHookah]

but tar? i was of the belief that shisha contained no tar. am i mistaken?

[skiracerj1]

good research! This could offer an explination as to why many people dont find hookah as addicting as cigarettes, and why cigarette smokers sometimes dont get "buzzes" One important bullit point from the reaserch too is that the "tar" produced in hookah is less harmful because it burns at half the temperature of cigarettes. This is because at the temps cigs burn pyrolysis occurs, which creates some of the harmful components of cigarette tar, but hookahs dont burn hot enough to trigger much, if any pyrolysis. This is actually a very good paper that has believable information, I second the recommendation for people to read this, very iteresting

Edit: @ darth, it doesnt contain tar, but the glycerin or honey, or whatever the base is turns into tar, which is just another word for NFDPM, when heated

[Sonthert]

If you filter a little non-tar material out, it does in fact, proportionally increase the amount of tar. Makes sense. If i dip my finger in the frosting, the cake to frosting ratio increases. Their definition of tar makes little sense in terms of hookah, that would include glycerine and honey/molasses corn syrup (Right, Skirj). The real issue is what does that "Tar" become when it burns? The tobacco doesn't burn, thats why the whole tar comparison thing, as I understand it, is meaningless. If you were to burn the tobacco, you would end up with a bowl of tobacco and ashy dust or just ash...I usually end up with dried tobacco. I believe something ends up in the water after playing with phunnel heads. They prevent stuff from getting into the water other than what was pulled through in the form of smoke/vapor. I have indeed noticed that the water changes slightly, becomes slicker, more bubbly, like something is dissolved in there. I have also noticed some flavors are stronger in the winter when the water in the jar is cooler, allowing, theoretically, more flavor to get through. If the water didn't filter at all, putting ice in the jar would have no effect.

I will admit it doesn't do much, though.

[mgcsinc]

Just a couple things in response to Sonthert:

In terms of the proportional thing, the way that they measured tar was in absolute terms, so that the water filtering out some nicotine did not artificially increase the about of tar reported.

Also, in terms of the 'tar' not being of the same dangerousness as with cigarettes, you're absolutely right, and as noted above the researchers were careful to note that the lower temperatures with Hookah probably make for a less cancerous smoke. However, the heavy metals profile of the smoke that they analyzed is very telling: "As shown, the levels of chromium, cobalt and lead are orders of magnitude greater than produced by a single cigarette. Arsenic, beryllium and chromium are listed by IARC as Group 1(kn own human) carcinogens, while cobalt and lead are listed as Group 2B (possible human) carcinogens (Smith et al., 1997, 2001). Nickel, depending on its form, appears on both the Group 1 and Group 2B lists." Table 3 in the document is really telling in this regard.

Now, I'm in the same boat as everyone else - it seems odd to me and I don't really know where all those heavy metals come from, but they are there. Note that they did not do a heavy-metals count on the smoke from the water-less hookah, so we admittedly don't know about water acting as a filter for those specific compounds.

Anyway, I'm not trying to scare people or anything - I love hookah myself and will certainly continue to do it, but I just found that article and thought I would share.

[evlspcmk]

ok the problem i can see here is that the smokes not in the water long enough to do jack, ive thought of a few solutions since im bored and its 2am. 1st is that we could attach a mesh on the outside of the stem so when the bubbles come from it they are caught breaking them up into smaller bubbles sorta like the difsation shit ive read about but it should in theroy be better since the bubbles spend more time underwater and get broken up on the way up that way, heres a shitty pic i drew to try demonstrate my idea, i did it on fireworks since i dont have the mac equivelant of paint.


and heres a picture of tim allen for no god damn reason

[Tobes]

yo i have a mac, waht is the mac equialvant of paint, i wanna get that thing.

[evlspcmk]

i just used macromedia fireworks and it sucks as i dunno how to use it properly

[Sonthert]

Just a couple things in response to Sonthert:

In terms of the proportional thing, the way that they measured tar was in absolute terms, so that the water filtering out some nicotine did not artificially increase the about of tar reported.

Also, in terms of the 'tar' not being of the same dangerousness as with cigarettes, you're absolutely right, and as noted above the researchers were careful to note that the lower temperatures with Hookah probably make for a less cancerous smoke. However, the heavy metals profile of the smoke that they analyzed is very telling: "As shown, the levels of chromium, cobalt and lead are orders of magnitude greater than produced by a single cigarette. Arsenic, beryllium and chromium are listed by IARC as Group 1(kn own human) carcinogens, while cobalt and lead are listed as Group 2B (possible human) carcinogens (Smith et al., 1997, 2001). Nickel, depending on its form, appears on both the Group 1 and Group 2B lists." Table 3 in the document is really telling in this regard.

Now, I'm in the same boat as everyone else - it seems odd to me and I don't really know where all those heavy metals come from, but they are there. Note that they did not do a heavy-metals count on the smoke from the water-less hookah, so we admittedly don't know about water acting as a filter for those specific compounds.

Anyway, I'm not trying to scare people or anything - I love hookah myself and will certainly continue to do it, but I just found that article and thought I would share.

OK, so the heavy metals content is orders of magnatude higher than in cigarettes...does it pose a threat? It could be indeed 100 or 1000 times more, but that still doesn't say it poses a threshold risk. Lets say the risk threshold for a human is 10000 μg/Kg of person. If a cigarette contains 1 μg and a hookah bowl contais 1000 μg, that still doesn't pose a risk, although the content is orders of magnatude higher. This kind of scientific doublespeak is common. They have 6 pieces of information. The scientific community doesn't really know, but researcher A says it causes cancer, looks at items J,K and L. They ignore X, Y and Z that say it doesn't cause cancer. Researcher B says it doesn't cause cancer, look at items X, Y and Z and THEY ignore J, K and L.

[mgcsinc]

Overall, this study is pretty well done and fairly hesitant to make unwarranted, sweeping conclusions. Read it, I don't think they use "scientific doublespeak," I think they are just trying to contribute to a field that has a total absence of legitimate research devoted to it, and that's commendable, especially given how careful they were to mimic actual smoking conditions and to point out the limitations of their design.

All that said, smoking cigarettes causes cancer - we know that. I don't think anyone here doubts that. I do believe that that carcinogenic quality comes in part from heavy metals, thus suggesting that there are super-threshold quantities of heavy metals in cigarettes. If the hookah smoke contains those substances in even larger quantities, then those quantities are also super-threshold. You're right to question just how much we know about the contribution of the individual elements of the smoke, but I think you're discounting the research too much, as well as overestimating how much of a claim the researchers were actually trying to make.

The purpose of my post originally was just that it's clear that some of the same dangerous things that are in cigarette smoke are also in Hookah smoke despite not burning the tobacco. That fact seems clear to me. But, again, as I said, the researchers were careful to point out that more research needs to be done on smoke content before any conclusions about actual danger can be made.