atrombom Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 Being a newb, i'm very curious and I figured this question was different enough for its own thread. Does anyone know of any unbiased studies done on hookah smoke? I know what the folks selling shisha say (0 tar, .5% nicotine), and i've read the government statements (which seem to be little more than propaganda.) I would just like to see a study of hookah smoke by someone without a conflict of interest! Can anyone help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR Bubble Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 Fine question that is. I think we all have been on the search for the same study. Too few out there. I can't think of the places I've seen, but most are in another language (French, German, Hebrew, etc...) One study I remember seeing was from some doctor in Cairo. Said the same as any other government funded research: Hookah smokers are a bag of @$$ and impotent and blah, blah, blah...(to paraphrase it all) But also seems the Mayor of Cairo has it out for hookah smokers because they're not getting enough production out of them. One study done in Germany really suggests it is better than cigarettes. But that is in German. One of the members translated part of it (or the main gist of it) but I just can't remember who it was. I'm sure something else will come out soon, but I doubt it will be positive since shisha smoking is getting a little too popular for any government to handle (much less the one we fall under here). MR Bubble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atrombom Posted February 28, 2005 Author Share Posted February 28, 2005 I know a little bit of german, so maybe i'll hunt down that study. with cleaner tobacco, no direct flame, and water filtering, hookah simply cant be as bad as cigarette smoking, but it'd be nice to have some scientific data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cypress Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 I could be asking the wrong question here but how many middle easter people are dieing of lung cancer. I could be wrong in saying this but isnt hookah smoking over there as popular as cigarette smoking here? The other thing I dont know is that if over there do they just smoke the hookah like a cigar. I like inhaleing for the full flavor aspect. Its just like wine tasting, you don't get the full affect of the flavor if all you do is spit it out. The back of your tonge has taste buds and there is no way to get that flavor back there if it does not pass though there. This kind of smoking isnt safe but in my opinion its not as bad as regular cigarettes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NERV Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 well look at the facts: Hookah: Pros, its wet tobacco being cooked, no direct flame, and the water filters it Cons, a hookah smoke lasts about an hour, parts eventually get old and coated with stuff Cigarettes: Pros, with less time there is obviously less consuption, depending on the smoker a cig last from 20 seconds to 2 minutes, there is a filter, its disposeable so you never get any old stuff. Cons, CHEMICALS lots and lots of added chemicals which is most likely the source of the cancer IMO, the tobacco is dry and burning so you get the ash and CO that gets past the filter. Honestly, i dont tihnk anyone can defend that smoking a hookah is good for you, but since it isnt loaded with tar, extra nicotine, FIBERGLASS(menthols), etc. i would say that hookah is much less harmful than cigarettes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR Bubble Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 The link to that German study is on this site. It was several months ago and used to be easy to find, but we have grown really, really big and it will take some time to find, but it is here. It was in a thread. MR Bubble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atrombom Posted February 28, 2005 Author Share Posted February 28, 2005 [quote name='MR Bubble']I'm sure something else will come out soon, but I doubt it will be positive since shisha smoking is getting a little too popular for any government to handle (much less the one we fall under here).[/quote] too true, mr. bubble. i was also interested in the lung cancer rates in that area, especially with hookah being a centuries old tradition. regarding inhaling, i havent found anything that says one way is more common than the other there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NERV Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 smoking dry tobacco is also a centuries old tradition, but i itnhk its the chemical additives in recent years that have made cigarettes so unhealthy, back in the 1700's everyone was all about pipes, and they didnt have filters, i would dare someone to take the tobacco out of a cigarette, put it in an unfiltered pipe and try to enjoy that, bet its terrible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR Bubble Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 It's hard to say if they truly inhale. Normally, Zaghloul is smoked (unflavored massel, without foil) and it doesn't get smoky like the sweet stuff. So whenever I saw these guys smoking it, there was little smoke. I tried it and about torched a lung! Still, not much smoke. I can only believe and trust the package that says "tar: 0%." Next question is: Do they have lawful requirements to tell the truth? I emailed the R&D team at Nakhla last month (the only manufacturer who seems to have a working website) and asked how they went about establishing the "0 % tar" rating. No reply. No surprise on my part. Probably thought I was some disgruntled American looking for an international lawsuit. MR Bubble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NERV Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 Bubble, wouldnt it not have tar if they dont put tar in? not like tobacco grows with tar in it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NERV Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 i wudnt goto any news ppl, theyd make a huge story and blow it out of proportion saying there is a hookah epidemic spreading across the nation IS YOUR COLLEGEBOUND CHILD IN DANGER!?! FIND OUT TONIGHT AT 10!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atrombom Posted February 28, 2005 Author Share Posted February 28, 2005 i'm pretty sure tar forms from burning most plant matter, and that impression is the only reason why i'm suspicious of the 0 tar claim. maybe shisha contains only non-tar-causing plant parts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cypress Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 Good point NERVE. Although it would be funny to actually hear that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR Bubble Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 Well, supposedly what happens is the tobacco is not "burning," but "steaming" the molasses/honey out of it. You know, vaporizing it. Therefore, nothing burning, creating tar. Now, I may be wrong on that, but if it is making tar, maybe the process of filtration through water is the savior. In fact, THAT's what I was trying to get out of the Nakhla team: whether the actual smoke has tar and the water filters it out, or we just don't get tar from vaporizing the stuff. They act like I wanted their daughter or something. MR Bubble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cypress Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 We are talking about the tabacco but no one has mentioned what the coal adds to the system. The coal in fact is burning but is there such a thing as non harmful/clean burning coal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NERV Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 im sure you get some CO from the coals, but i doubt u get any ash, im sure it all gets filtered out by the time it goes thru the stem, thru the water, and thru the tube Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kofod Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 About the tar thing. Molasses in a packdoes'nt contain tar. Hence "0 %" tar on the pack Smoke from "steamed" molasses contain tar - due to the steaming process and the coal. In "smoking science terms" tar is everything not being water or nicotine = all organic compounds being dragged into your lungs. I think what Mr. Bubble is looking for is this german webpage: [url="http://www.shisha-fans.de/gesundheitstest.php"]http://www.shisha-fans.de/gesundheitstest.php[/url] There are more scientific measurements out there - but I cant link to them cause they are in the scientific article litterature - which is "paying customers only". But I can find some references for those who are students or whatever with acces to databases and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E.G. Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 [quote name='NERV']smoking dry tobacco is also a centuries old tradition, but i itnhk its the chemical additives in recent years that have made cigarettes so unhealthy...[/quote] While I don't disagree that chemical additives can't be good for you, the commonly accepted wisdom is that inhaling any burnt matter isn't good for you as well. Apparantly there was a tendency to smoke grape waves during one of the World Wars as a substitue for tobaco, and lung cancer rates remained the same. It appears that it's the process of burning anything is the problem, not juswt tobacco. As for steaming off molases but not burning the shisha, I don't know about you folks, but my shisha is usually pretty well charred at the end of a smoking session! E.G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kofod Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 Charred is not ashed! And - When we are at the World War thing. In UK before WWII the primary way of tobacco consumption was pipe, cigars and other non-cigarette forms (though I doubt there was much hookah smoking ) Now the male english youth went to war - and turned the picture from one day to the other - cigarettes was more suited for war times - supplies where from the US and it makes sence to have this kind of "sweet stuf" in the rations - candybars and whatever. So it was used as a moral booster. The figures that came in the UK med. statistics afterwards is refered to the lung cancer epidemic and the start of the modern smoking problem in society. It cleared out the drastic difference between cigarettes and other forms of smoking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stew Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 [quote name='NERV']Bubble, wouldnt it not have tar if they dont put tar in? not like tobacco grows with tar in it[/quote] As I understand things... if one burns any sort of plant material, it will release tar. But that's just what I figure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atrombom Posted February 28, 2005 Author Share Posted February 28, 2005 I ran the german study(thanks for the link Kofod) through freetranslations.com and learned what i could from it. it has a picture of two air filters, one that was exposed to hookah smoke and one exposed to cigarette smoke. hookah is on the left, cigarette on the right to quote the study, the one on the left is after a normal, large amount of apple flavored shisha, and the one on the right is from one "ultra-light" cigarette. Very encouraging indeed. The other data they have shows that almost all nicotine is filtered by the hookah. There was one other table on the effects of the coals on hookah smoke but i couldnt figure that one out. thanks again for the link Kofod. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NERV Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 eh, its good enough for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atrombom Posted February 28, 2005 Author Share Posted February 28, 2005 also the study says that a regular bowl of unsmoked shisha contains as much nicotine as two non-light cigarettes. but like it says later, the hookah filters out around 80-90% of the nicotine anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NERV Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 thats actually somewhat surprising, plenty of ppl get a big buzz from the hookah, one wouldve thoguht it was the nicotine, anything else it cud be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piperdown Posted March 1, 2005 Share Posted March 1, 2005 Found [url="http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters?lookup=by_date&days=90#267"]this[/url] an interesting, on-topic read, hopefully it's not been posted already... Basically debunking an existing study - worth a read, at any rate... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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