The Big Lie

[amnite]

I see so what about the reports that claim shisha is just as worse as cigerettes? They confuse me if I smoke a session every couple of months or every 2-3 weeks... In which I used to do it every couple of months does that mean I'm putting myself in seroise danger?

Oh yes I dont want to sound like an idiot, but how do I know weather the tobacco is washed or unwashed , whats the difference? Sorry I dont these but please explain to me Edited July 15, 2007 by amnite

[Ehagen8008]

so basically to put in easier terms.. how many cigerettes am I smoking if I smoke a 40 mins session of an Al Fakher branded molasses, 3 kings charcoal along with a standard shisha with foil covering... smoking with friends... a rough estimate or is it not possible to tell... i am not sure how many puffs but lets say an estimate

Looking at that research it has been critised before that smoking machine taking continous puffs is unfair testing read from narghiles website

1. The question of cigarette equivalence (how many cigs am I smoking if I do XYZ) is loaded, because hookah is inherently different. The question has to be asked differently, in terms of specific types of effects. I'd say that given the details that you mention, assuming you are smoking with two other people, you are getting (estimates):

• 50 cigarettes worth of inhaled smoke
• 5 cigarettes worth of 'tar'
• 1/3 a cigarette worth of nicotine (assuming unwashed tobacco)
• 1-2 cigarettes worth of blood nicotine increase
• less than 1 cigarette worth of carciongenicity (cancer potential)

2. There is absolutely no reason to think that Soex or other herbal shishas are less dangerous (in terms of negative health outcomes, not addictive potential).

3. There is no such thing as a plant that can be smoked without producing 'tar'.

4. The machines used to simulate smoking hookah in some studies (including the one I'm always linking to) replicate real-world smoking patterns very well. They are not the continuous smoking machines of yesteryear. Websites that criticize methodologies without reading them - assuming that the old criticisms of cigarette research are the same here - are doing a great disservice to people reading them and to the scientists that spent many man hours developing these methods.

dont forget to add:
ZERO cigarettes worth of rat poison and other crap they put in cigarettes...

[mgcsinc]

I'm skeptical about the research concerning hookah. I fully under stand its bad. But when I consider how the anti-tobacco movement thought they were winning then along comes the hookah, I'm firmly of the opinion that they doctured the reasearch to make it seem worse than it really is. I use the culture that the hookah comes from as an example based on moderation they have lower cancer than with cigarette smokers. Cigarette smokers tend to chain smoke one after the other, but If you smoke a bowl a week. Yes you will have a higher cancer risk than a non-smoker, but I also think that you'll have less risk than a cigarette smoker who smokes a pack or two a day.

I just found an article that says that their has not been enough proper research on the hookah to determine 100% good or bad.
http://hookahviews.com/health.php

I am consistently amazed at the degree to which people are willing to villainize tobacco researchers. The tobacco health debate was, for many decades, a fight between two groups: (a.) Large corporations full of savy business people interested, most of all, in the bottom line, and (b.) scientists, who became scientists in the interest of finding the truth, and who are not motivated by enormous profits. Somehow, tobacco marketing in last century was effective enough to convince people that it was the latter group that was evil and prone to ethical slips. What's most hilarious about it all is that the tobacco companies' internal documents (which were released as part of a settlement, and are now publicly available) show that all this time they knew (their own researchers had found) much of what they were attempting to disgrace the public health scientists for claiming. People's apparent hatred for the anti-tobacco movement is, in my mind, a disgraceful demonstration of ignorance.

Incidentally, I suggest that people actually read the link in dcooksjr's post.

[mgcsinc]

dont forget to add:
ZERO cigarettes worth of rat poison and other crap they put in cigarettes...

One fair criticism of tobacco researchers of the past is that they put too much emphasis on additives. It was a scare tactic designed to disgust people. It worked. Unfortunately, it obscured the truth, so I'll repeat it, again:

• the word 'tar' has nothing to do with what cigarette companies add to cigarettes. It's fun to think that shisha is much less dangerous for you because there is nothing added, but it's just a fantasy.
• naturally occurring substances can cause cancer, and in the case of tobacco, they do.
• the smoke from shisha contains copious amounts of 'tar', and it has not yet been demonstrated how this compares with cigarette smoke in terms of carcinogenicity.

[amnite]

I read the website, yes its good but is this true?

"One session of hookah smoke (approx. 45 min.) is the equivalent of smoking one pack of cigarettes per day. The blood levels and genetic changes of the bronchial tubes and chromosome changes of hookah and cigarette smokers are about the same. There is just as much damage from both."

Is that by yourself or with people? The website doesnt say Edited July 15, 2007 by amnite

[mgcsinc]

I read the website, yes its good but is this true?

"One session of hookah smoke (approx. 45 min.) is the equivalent of smoking one pack of cigarettes per day. The blood levels and genetic changes of the bronchial tubes and chromosome changes of hookah and cigarette smokers are about the same. There is just as much damage from both."

Is that by yourself or with people? The website doesnt say

The website is just an interview, and interviews often don't give the kind of detail you're looking for. There's a good review article that will give you a full set of references:

Maziak et al. "Tobacco smoking using a waterpipe: a re-emerging strain in a global epidemic." Tob. Control (2004) 13: 327-333.

It may or may not (I don't know if it requires an institutional account) be available at:

http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/13/4/327

If you can't access it, let me know.

[amnite]

yep read it.. hmm never knew thailand banned hookahs, yeh i see now the effects hookah, theres too little research I hope good research comes along... oh yh mgcsinc do you smoke hookah? If so how many sessions a day/week.... Edited July 15, 2007 by amnite

[mgcsinc]

yep read it.. hmm never knew thailand banned hookahs, yeh i see now the effects hookah, theres too little research I hope good research comes along... oh yh mgcsinc do you smoke hookah? If so how many sessions a day/week....

I smoke 1-3 sessions a week, and they're usually like 1.5-3 hours long. I love it, and wouldn't give it up unless I thought smoking at that frequency was seriously damaging my body; as yet, that hasn't really been demonstrated to me, and I don't expect it to be. That said, I'm only 21, and I don't expect to continue using hookah with this frequency far into the future.

[Furio]

here is a test to prove that the water helps filter out the tar in shisha (or at least a lot of it).

Take a puff or 2 on a cig, then blow onto your nail. After 3 or 4 times you will see that some brown stuff starts to show up.

Do it with shisha and you will find that it would take around 30/40 puffs to show that amount of tar on your nail.

[jonny_lech]

1. The question of cigarette equivalence (how many cigs am I smoking if I do XYZ) is loaded, because hookah is inherently different. The question has to be asked differently, in terms of specific types of effects. I'd say that given the details that you mention, assuming you are smoking with two other people, you are getting (estimates):

• 50 cigarettes worth of inhaled smoke
• 5 cigarettes worth of 'tar'
  
• 1/3 a cigarette worth of nicotine (assuming unwashed tobacco)
  
• 1-2 cigarettes worth of blood nicotine increase
• less than 1 cigarette worth of carciongenicity (cancer potential)

(bold emphasis mine)

I've always suspected something like this. While I'm sure some of ciggarette addiction is the psychological impact of the act; every time I've smoked hookah socially with people who are *regular* ciggarette smokers have always had to smoke a ciggarette during the session. This was with using unwashed shisha.

[mgcsinc]

here is a test to prove that the water helps filter out the tar in shisha (or at least a lot of it).

Take a puff or 2 on a cig, then blow onto your nail. After 3 or 4 times you will see that some brown stuff starts to show up.

Do it with shisha and you will find that it would take around 30/40 puffs to show that amount of tar on your nail.

What you're demonstrating has nothing to do with the raw 'tar' content of the smoke. It has to do with two things:

1. The 'tar' produced by shisha is of a different nature (and a different color) from that produced by cigarettes.

2. If you were to do this with a balloon and a pump rather than a set of lungs, you'd see different results. Hookah smoke is inhaled much deeper than cigarette smoke, so you can't expect what's left in the inhaled gas to represent the same thing for the two smoking methods.

I've always suspected something like this. While I'm sure some of ciggarette addiction is the psychological impact of the act; every time I've smoked hookah socially with people who are *regular* ciggarette smokers have always had to smoke a ciggarette during the session. This was with using unwashed shisha.

True.

Nicotine addiction is an interesting thing. The physiological, psychological, and addictive effects of nicotine depend not only on how much nicotine is delivered, but various other factors such as speed of delivery and consistency of presence in the blood. Interestingly, hookah is more effective at producing increases in blood nicotine than cigarette smoking, for the same quantity of inhaled nicotine. However, blood increases in cotinine (a nicotine metabolite) may not be greater for hookah. This is just an example of how complicated nicotine metabolism is in the body.

[amnite]

oh yes I noticed that, my friend, when we was smoking shisha she had to smoke a cigerette during the session of hookah... I was woundering why when shisha contains nicotine lol Yh well am taking my chances shisha is too nice to be given up completely.. once in a while shoudnt do no harm I hope! I also hope that along with the research they develop some devices that decrease the negative effects of shisha and I hope they research all types of hookahs and molasses brands so they know which is worse... The researches have a longgg way to go lol!

OK I want to know know what do you mean by unwashed and washed shisha.. Whats the differences? Edited July 15, 2007 by amnite

[amnite]

Hey check this out....

"
"Long-term studies with water pipe smoke have not been carried out. These studies are of epidemiological interest because of the apparent infrequency of lung cancer among Syrians and water pipe smoking Asiatic and African immigrants to Israel (Rakower, 1955, 1957; Kallner, 1961). Smokers of oriental pipes are further believed to be noninhalers (Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel, 1959).

Hoffmann et al. (1963) conducted a short-term experiment with 33% water pipe smoke condensate-acetone mixture and found only a minimal amount of hyperplasia and no destruction of the sebaceous glands, as compared to a significant amount of hyperplasia and sebaceous gland destruction when these tests were conducted with cigarette smoke condensate in the same concentration. The authors suggest, on the basis of this short-term study, that the tumorigenic activity to mouse skin of smoke condensate from a water-pipe is low, but long-term tests appear in order."


And about the "ORIENTAL PIPE SMOKE CONDENSATE"

Rakower and Fatal (1962) were among the first to set up a study on the "tar" content of smoke from the Narghile, the Oriental water pipe. The tobacco generally used in Yemen is tombac, a kind of makhorka. Rakower and Fatal compared its smoke with that of a popular brand of blended tobacco.
The tombac smoked in the Boori (the pipe bowl) yielded only 16.1 mg of "tar" per gram of tobacco, at a puff volume of 200 ml, with puff pauses of 60 seconds. The tobacco blend under these conditions yielded 26.2 mg of "tar." Most remarkable, however, is the filter efficiency of the water in the Shishi, the water-filled main part of the Narghile. When the Narghile is used with water, as normally practiced, "tar" yield from 1.0 g of tombac is 8.4 mg, and from 1.0 g of tobacco blend, 14.2 mg. ln other words, the percentage of "tar" absorbed by the water is 82% in the case of tombac and 91 % for the blended tobacco.

That the water in the Shishi is a highly efficient filter medium for smoke condensate has been confirmed by Hoffmann et al. (1963). One gram of Syrian tobacco smoked in a Middle East Arkileh without water yielded 17 mg of "tar," whereas 650 ml of water in the Shishi retained 9.6 mg of this quantity. Thus, only 7.4 mg of condensate is obtained when the Arkileh is smoked with parameters of 2 puffs per minute of 35 ml and 2 seconds duration. Glowing charcoal was used to ignite the tobacco (2.2 g) in the Boori. The authors reported experimental deviations to be higher than +5% owing to difficulties in securing continuous burning of the tobacco.

That the water in the Shishi is a highly efficient filter medium for smoke condensate has been confirmed by Hoffmann et al. (1963). One gram of Syrian tobacco smoked in a Middle East Arkileh without water yielded 17 mg of "tar," whereas 650 ml of water in the Shishi retained 9.6 mg of this quantity. Thus, only 7.4 mg of condensate is obtained when the Arkileh is smoked with parameters of 2 puffs per minute of 35 ml and 2 seconds duration. Glowing charcoal was used to ignite the tobacco (2.2 g) in the Boori. The authors reported experimental deviations to be higher than +5% owing to difficulties in securing continuous burning of the tobacco."

"

SOURCE: Ernest L. WYNDER, Dietrich HOFFMANN. Tobacco and Tobacco Smoke. Studies in Experimental Carcinogenesis. Academic Press (New York, London), 1967, pages 186, 329-330

Over the last 10 years this was considered to be bullshit but independant researchers have taken these books back out and have continued using them to guide them, some consider them bullsht but knowone knows

This interests me
" ln other words, the percentage of "tar" absorbed by the water is 82% in the case of tombac and 91 % for the blended tobacco"

Am not saying this is true but this was done by a proffessional scientist back in the days.. His research must of been proven false then to recent research Edited July 15, 2007 by amnite

[amnite]

here is a test to prove that the water helps filter out the tar in shisha (or at least a lot of it).

Take a puff or 2 on a cig, then blow onto your nail. After 3 or 4 times you will see that some brown stuff starts to show up.

Do it with shisha and you will find that it would take around 30/40 puffs to show that amount of tar on your nail.

What you're demonstrating has nothing to do with the raw 'tar' content of the smoke. It has to do with two things:

1. The 'tar' produced by shisha is of a different nature (and a different color) from that produced by cigarettes.

2. If you were to do this with a balloon and a pump rather than a set of lungs, you'd see different results. Hookah smoke is inhaled much deeper than cigarette smoke, so you can't expect what's left in the inhaled gas to represent the same thing for the two smoking methods.

I've always suspected something like this. While I'm sure some of ciggarette addiction is the psychological impact of the act; every time I've smoked hookah socially with people who are *regular* ciggarette smokers have always had to smoke a ciggarette during the session. This was with using unwashed shisha.

True.

Nicotine addiction is an interesting thing. The physiological, psychological, and addictive effects of nicotine depend not only on how much nicotine is delivered, but various other factors such as speed of delivery and consistency of presence in the blood. Interestingly, hookah is more effective at producing increases in blood nicotine than cigarette smoking, for the same quantity of inhaled nicotine. However, blood increases in cotinine (a nicotine metabolite) may not be greater for hookah. This is just an example of how complicated nicotine metabolism is in the body.

Just backing your point up about continine with research I just found...
"The intra-assay coefficients of variation for nicotine and cotinine were 16.6% and 6.6%, respectively. The mean of cotinine in cigarette smokers (1321.4 ng/mL) was significantly (P = 0.008) higher than the mean cotinine (677.6 ng/mL) in HB smokers. The mean nicotine level in cigarette smokers (1487.3 ng/mL) was significantly (P < 0.0001) higher than the mean nicotine (440.5 ng/mL) in HB smoker. The urinary cotinine and nicotine levels of the control subjects were lower than the detection levels of the assay. The mean high-density lipoprotein cholesterol was lower in cigarette smokers (0.99 mmol/L) compared with HB smoker smokers (1.02 mmol/L) but this was not significant (P = 0.28).......

Smoking HB does not reduce the risk of tobacco exposure and it's potentially harmful metabolites on health."
Source: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/...000004/art00013

[Sonthert]

so basically to put in easier terms.. how many cigerettes am I smoking if I smoke a 40 mins session of an Al Fakher branded molasses, 3 kings charcoal along with a standard shisha with foil covering... smoking with friends... a rough estimate or is it not possible to tell... i am not sure how many puffs but lets say an estimate

Looking at that research it has been critised before that smoking machine taking continous puffs is unfair testing read from narghiles website

1. The question of cigarette equivalence (how many cigs am I smoking if I do XYZ) is loaded, because hookah is inherently different. The question has to be asked differently, in terms of specific types of effects. I'd say that given the details that you mention, assuming you are smoking with two other people, you are getting (estimates):

• 50 cigarettes worth of inhaled smoke
• 5 cigarettes worth of 'tar'
• 1/3 a cigarette worth of nicotine (assuming unwashed tobacco)
• 1-2 cigarettes worth of blood nicotine increase
• less than 1 cigarette worth of carciongenicity (cancer potential)

2. There is absolutely no reason to think that Soex or other herbal shishas are less dangerous (in terms of negative health outcomes, not addictive potential).

3. There is no such thing as a plant that can be smoked without producing 'tar'.

4. The machines used to simulate smoking hookah in some studies (including the one I'm always linking to) replicate real-world smoking patterns very well. They are not the continuous smoking machines of yesteryear. Websites that criticize methodologies without reading them - assuming that the old criticisms of cigarette research are the same here - are doing a great disservice to people reading them and to the scientists that spent many man hours developing these methods.

Blowing things out of proportion, again?

Do look at the thread mgc linked:
http://www.hookahforum.com/index.php?showt...mp;#entry102867

Read my entry regarding the toxicity of the heavy metals in question. Tons of Beryllium...1000 years of smoking would build up a 50% toxic dose. Oooh. Big threat. Beryllium was the worst of the ones I found LD50s for. Even using that study's data, in that link, it would take over 4,000 years to get a 50% toxic dose of lead.

In response to your four points:

1. It isn't smoke that comes out of most hookahs...its vapor. There is a distinct difference, in many ways between the two. Especially in their health effects. One has been studied, the other has not. In fact, as I understand smoking a hookah, you get ZERO cigarettes worth of smoke from smoking a hookah. No smoke.

Tar, as you conceded, from a hookah is different. You are now applying cigarette tar equivalents to hookahs, when they are vastly different. They aren't comparable, or if they are, there is no data that I have seen to prove that they are. Its incredibly dishonest to try to compare them when you acknowledge they are different without showing something to show that the tars are comparable.

Nicotine is a health problem...how?

How do you calculate that cancer potential? If nobody has done studies to make a legitimate case about how carcinogenic hookahs are, how is that number arrived at? Divining rod?

2. I agree.

3. I agree. Since hookah tobacco isn't smoked, your contention is irrelevant.

4. I looked at their apparatus...as a scientist, I had some questions. Ones that had no answers, since it was an on-line article. I don't agree with your contention. There is no official real-world way of smoking hookah. It all varies, so it may apply to how you smoke hookah, might it might not apply to how I smoke hookah, so it couldn't be a good replication. Its like replicating how two people screw. There is no official way (that I know of). Can I come up with a better apparatus? I'm not sure, but I am entitled to criticize their apparatus just as much as you are entitled to believe it replicates. How do you know that websites that criticize this study didn't read the study? I read it and I'm criticizing it. Not really, but their study looked awful, their data was presented poorly and the data regarding the heavy metals was under the heading of "So what"? Its not uncommon for a poorly done study to be read by critics and closed when they find a serious, basic problem with it...why read on? The same way people walk out of a movie. I can criticize a movie I walked out of the same way someone who didn't read an entire study that was horribly flawed scientifically can shoot it down. I am not saying that the study was horribly flawed. I'm saying in general. I'm not going to keep reading a study that attributes a systematic error to "god's whims". Its absurd and it makes the study not worth reading. You always say that people can't criticize it if they don't read it...who says?

[Sonthert]

True.

Nicotine addiction is an interesting thing. The physiological, psychological, and addictive effects of nicotine depend not only on how much nicotine is delivered, but various other factors such as speed of delivery and consistency of presence in the blood. Interestingly, hookah is more effective at producing increases in blood nicotine than cigarette smoking, for the same quantity of inhaled nicotine. However, blood increases in cotinine (a nicotine metabolite) may not be greater for hookah. This is just an example of how complicated nicotine metabolism is in the body.

Bad news for you, sunshine. Cotenine (sp?) is an oxidation product of nicotine...that is, it is created when tobacco is burned...it just adds more fuel to the fire that sheesha doesn't burn (Pardon the pun). Cotenine is not produced by the human body, at least from my reading of the Merck Index, but by burning...so obviously its level in the bloodstream doesn't go up from smoking a hookah. Cotenine isn't a metabolite...where are you getting this manure? Somebody's citing something that isn't true. I may have to read over it again, just to make sure, but I read that monograph with great interest many times. Oxidation product, not metabolite.

Besides, why are we comparing hookahs and cigarettes? Why do we use the most dangerous of the tobacco products? According to the old Surgeon General's Reports, mortality rates in people smoking pipes (independent of average per day or length of habit), or less than 5 cigars per day are not different than for non-smokers. Hookahs are a lot closer, from a functional perspective, to a pipe than to a cigarette or even closer to a cigar. Why make the worst possible parallel that just strengthens the case? Obviously, if unbiased scientific researchers were studying this, they would be making closer comparisons...they choose to make the worst possible associations to make their case seem more important. If I chose to compare a virus with another virus, and I wanted to bias people's opinions, I would compare it to bubonic plague or herpes. I choose the framework of a comparison...If I were comparing a duck to another animal, would I choose a snake or a chicken? Ducks are closer to chickens, rationally, unless you wanted to make a case for how dangerous ducks (or hookahs) were, then you would compare them to dangerous snakes.

I think it goes without saying that the continued comparison of cigarettes to hookahs is distorting the case to begin with. Smoking a pipe burns tobacco, it contains nicotine. It contains all the same chemicals as cigarettes...yet, it doesn't seem to increase mortality rate. How could that be? It must be unreasonable to compare pipes and cigarettes in terms of mortality rate, which seems pretty damned important. If it isn't reasonable to compare pipes and cigarettes...why is it reasonable to compare hookahs and cigarettes? Edited July 16, 2007 by Sonthert

[*HOT&SMOKING*]

Oh yes I dont want to sound like an idiot, but how do I know weather the tobacco is washed or unwashed , whats the difference? Sorry I dont these but please explain to me

Companys usually just claim that it is or is not but i dont think one can be sure by SOME!

-H&S

[*HOT&SMOKING*]

I have been reading this type of article so much that i really don't give a damn anymore. It's up to us to make the choice of smoking or not.

'If you don't take the risk, you've wasted your soul'

So if you want to smoke hookah than go ahead smoke it if you think it's bad for your health, it is get over it. Peace

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! I could not agree more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-H&S

[amnite]

Sonthert nice replys, So you say you cannot compare cigerette tar to hookah tar.. Then how is it that these scientists or I whoever they are claim that 1 session (30-40 mins) is equals to a pack of cigerettes (12).. Do you believe this?

Ok from what I've learnt, the researchers have got a longgggg to go in to researchin hookah... I have learnt from facts...

"Other research has indicated that the use of the sheisha may reduce comparative cancer risks, though such studies are not conclusive (Hoffman, Rakower, Salem 1983 and 90, Gupta Dheeraj 2001, Tandon 1995, Lubin 1992, Hazelton 2001, Stirling 1979). The levels of carbon monoxide produced during a sheisha session varies widely depending on the type of coal used."

I've read hoffmans report (read on couple of replys back) and its probably one of the best i've read... Apparantly it was scrapped and is now brought back. A french scientist has been researching the effects of hookah for the last 10 years, his research shows that hoffman's reports and many other scientists from years back were infact correct (http://www.sacrednarghile.com/images/Hooka...resentation.jpg)

Now my question is does the coal effect the amount of tar produced in shisha smoke (the way shisha filters out the tar)? Does even the temperature play a role to its effect?

How long have quicklight charcoals been around (was shisha originally meant for smoking through this method or natural coals)?

Has anyone got any other experiments with conclusions made from there experiments? (if so, experiments with natural charcoals and I dont want any of that smoking machine used, something different with realistic temperatures) Edited July 16, 2007 by amnite

[dcrooksjr]

I pulled that article up on a whim and barley read it.
All I'm saying is their are two sides to this argument. Theirs the tobacco company side and the anti-tobacco side.
When scientists do research they need funding and these funders usually have an agenda, back in the 50's they where telling people it was healthy to smoke because of the agenda. Now knowing this I must ask my self when an anti-tobacco group funds a study. How much real scientific information am I getting and how much useless info am I getting based on the anti-tobacco movements agenda, witch is to completely stop tobacco use.
The thing I find most interesting is that the hookah as only really been popular in America for two to three years, as other forms of tobacco decline hookah use goes up, this makes the anti-tobacco people angry so I ask. Why would they not try to "prove" that it was dangerous and more dangerous than cigarettes to get people away from it. Their agenda is NO TOBACCO.
And if the government and health organizations think its so bad why not just get rid of it, they can't because their is still money in tobacco. If they lose the ability to tax tobacco they'll have to get it from some where else and it seems that most smokers don't mind paying an extra tax bill.
I just follow the age old rule of moderation a bowl or two a week of hookah is a lot better than a whole carton and any where between another half to full carton of cigarettes in a week that my father could smoke at the peak of his addiction.

[amnite]

hmmm good point, so I guess we will never know the true effects of hookah! lol

[*HOT&SMOKING*]

hmmm good point, so I guess we will never know the true effects of hookah! lol

EXACTLY!! So it is bye your own choice if you want to think it is dangerous and not smoke or smoke!!!

-H&S

[mgcsinc]

Blowing things out of proportion, again?

Do look at the thread mgc linked:
http://www.hookahforum.com/index.php?showt...mp;#entry102867

Read my entry regarding the toxicity of the heavy metals in question. Tons of Beryllium...1000 years of smoking would build up a 50% toxic dose. Oooh. Big threat. Beryllium was the worst of the ones I found LD50s for. Even using that study's data, in that link, it would take over 4,000 years to get a 50% toxic dose of lead.

In response to your four points:

1. It isn't smoke that comes out of most hookahs...its vapor. There is a distinct difference, in many ways between the two. Especially in their health effects. One has been studied, the other has not. In fact, as I understand smoking a hookah, you get ZERO cigarettes worth of smoke from smoking a hookah. No smoke.

Tar, as you conceded, from a hookah is different. You are now applying cigarette tar equivalents to hookahs, when they are vastly different. They aren't comparable, or if they are, there is no data that I have seen to prove that they are. Its incredibly dishonest to try to compare them when you acknowledge they are different without showing something to show that the tars are comparable.

Nicotine is a health problem...how?

How do you calculate that cancer potential? If nobody has done studies to make a legitimate case about how carcinogenic hookahs are, how is that number arrived at? Divining rod?

2. I agree.

3. I agree. Since hookah tobacco isn't smoked, your contention is irrelevant.

4. I looked at their apparatus...as a scientist, I had some questions. Ones that had no answers, since it was an on-line article. I don't agree with your contention. There is no official real-world way of smoking hookah. It all varies, so it may apply to how you smoke hookah, might it might not apply to how I smoke hookah, so it couldn't be a good replication. Its like replicating how two people screw. There is no official way (that I know of). Can I come up with a better apparatus? I'm not sure, but I am entitled to criticize their apparatus just as much as you are entitled to believe it replicates. How do you know that websites that criticize this study didn't read the study? I read it and I'm criticizing it. Not really, but their study looked awful, their data was presented poorly and the data regarding the heavy metals was under the heading of "So what"? Its not uncommon for a poorly done study to be read by critics and closed when they find a serious, basic problem with it...why read on? The same way people walk out of a movie. I can criticize a movie I walked out of the same way someone who didn't read an entire study that was horribly flawed scientifically can shoot it down. I am not saying that the study was horribly flawed. I'm saying in general. I'm not going to keep reading a study that attributes a systematic error to "god's whims". Its absurd and it makes the study not worth reading. You always say that people can't criticize it if they don't read it...who says?

First, let me address the aspects of what I've said that you are misrepresenting:

1. I never claimed that nicotine is a "health problem" in terms of negative health outcomes. I've explained this time and time again in the past. My acknowledgment of this is also inherent in my assertion that 'herbal' shishas are not safer. I don't know where in the world you got the idea that I thought it was a health problem. The only reason I mentioned it is because people seem interested to know about the nicotine content in hookah, because of its (supposed) addictive potential.

2. I did not, on first principals, apply tar equivalences to hookah smoke. I was simply responding to the constant debate that is going on here and in some scientific venues about such an equivalence. There is a reason I used 'tar' in quotation marks, and it's the same reason that it is used in quotation marks on cigarette packs, i.e. to avoid making any specific claims about what that 'tar' contains. 'tar' has a specific scientific meaning, and under that scientific meaning, hookah has the 'tar' content that I described. How on earth am I being dishonest when you note that I have specifically acknowledged the differences in the 'tar' contents? Acknowledging a flaw is, like, the definition of honesty.

What I really don't get is that you seem to have misunderstood the entire purposed of my post, which, rather than "blowing things out of proportion", was designed to give an understanding of the way that the comparisons made by some scientists were technically accurate (contrary to some cries otherwise) but of dubious usefulness. Thus, I move on to my next point...

3. I never calculated a cancer potential. I said "less than 1 cigarette worth of carciongenicity". How, in your wildest dreams, that could appear to be a precise calculation, I don't know. I didn't say "about 1 cigarette..." or "almost 1 cigarette..." - I used "less than" for a reason. The only things that I meant to communicate with that statement were my beliefs that there is some amount (no specified quantity) of carcinogenicity involved, and that quantity is less than a cigarette. The latter idea comes from the various reasons (which you have articulated) for thinking that 'tar' from hookah is less carcinogenic than 'tar' from cigarettes.

Now, for your point #4. So far as I'm concerned, your discussion about the study I linked to betrays the fact that you have limited understanding of the scientific process, at least in this field and any field in which I have ever been involved. Just to make sure we're actually talking about the same thing, I'm discussing the article at http://webfea-lb.fea.aub.edu.lb/aerosol/do...gilehpaper1.pdf .

1. This is not an "on-line article". This is quite simply not true. It was published in 2003 in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, vol 41, pp. 143-152. Any 'scientist' would have understood that after 5 seconds of reading the front material of the article.

2. The majority of criticisms that I have read of this and other studies have demonstrated large misunderstandings of the apparatus. This is how I know that the critics did not actually read the study.

3. A scientific study is not like a movie. In science, one does not get one or two pages into a study and decide they don't like it, and walk away without making substantive criticisms. This study was published in a peer-reviewed journal, so at least two scientists unrelated to the original author read and accepted the manuscript. This is how it works in science, and it's a system designed so that papers which are eventually published are of high enough quality that you can't just reject them without making specific, pointed criticisms.

4. My praise of the author's apparatus was not an attempt at calling it perfect, but rather, a response to criticisms that compare it to the continuous smoking machines of smoking research past. I was simply indicating that, compared to previous methods, these methods are much more accurate. IN FACT, they were designed based on observing patrons at an actual hookah lounge.

5. I invite you to explain what made the study 'look awful'.

6. The assertion that their data was presented poorly is strange to me. I've seen much worse, and I actually think their data was presented quite well. Explain what you mean.

7. "the data regarding the heavy metals was under the heading of "So what"?"; "I'm not going to keep reading a study that attributes a systematic error to "god's whims"" - I'm assuming these are not specific references to this study? If so, I'm confused.

To be fair, I've saved your best point for last: vapor v. smoke. My understanding is that there are elements of the shisha that pyrolate at the circa-500 degree centigrade temperatures reached by the coal. However, I admit that the nature of the content of the 'smoke' that is coming off the shisha is not well understood, and I am open to the idea that it is simply glycerine vapor. I'll leave that discussion for another day, when I am more prepared for it. As it is, I have never made any specific claims about the carcinogenicity of hookah smoke.

[mgcsinc]

Bad news for you, sunshine. Cotenine (sp?) is an oxidation product of nicotine...that is, it is created when tobacco is burned...it just adds more fuel to the fire that sheesha doesn't burn (Pardon the pun). Cotenine is not produced by the human body, at least from my reading of the Merck Index, but by burning...so obviously its level in the bloodstream doesn't go up from smoking a hookah. Cotenine isn't a metabolite...where are you getting this manure? Somebody's citing something that isn't true. I may have to read over it again, just to make sure, but I read that monograph with great interest many times. Oxidation product, not metabolite.

Besides, why are we comparing hookahs and cigarettes? Why do we use the most dangerous of the tobacco products? According to the old Surgeon General's Reports, mortality rates in people smoking pipes (independent of average per day or length of habit), or less than 5 cigars per day are not different than for non-smokers. Hookahs are a lot closer, from a functional perspective, to a pipe than to a cigarette or even closer to a cigar. Why make the worst possible parallel that just strengthens the case? Obviously, if unbiased scientific researchers were studying this, they would be making closer comparisons...they choose to make the worst possible associations to make their case seem more important. If I chose to compare a virus with another virus, and I wanted to bias people's opinions, I would compare it to bubonic plague or herpes. I choose the framework of a comparison...If I were comparing a duck to another animal, would I choose a snake or a chicken? Ducks are closer to chickens, rationally, unless you wanted to make a case for how dangerous ducks (or hookahs) were, then you would compare them to dangerous snakes.

I think it goes without saying that the continued comparison of cigarettes to hookahs is distorting the case to begin with. Smoking a pipe burns tobacco, it contains nicotine. It contains all the same chemicals as cigarettes...yet, it doesn't seem to increase mortality rate. How could that be? It must be unreasonable to compare pipes and cigarettes in terms of mortality rate, which seems pretty damned important. If it isn't reasonable to compare pipes and cigarettes...why is it reasonable to compare hookahs and cigarettes?

Come on, don't resort to calling me things like 'sunshine' - it's just not nice, and ad hominem attacks are not useful to anyone

Every piece of tobacco control literature I've ever read has indicated that cotinine (correct spelling) is a nicotine metabolite. Either your source is wrong, you misread it, or a large body of science is wrong. You can guess which of these I think it is.

Furthermore, in a hilarious twist, even if you're right about it being a combustion product, you just admitted to me that there is combustion taking place, because you didn't read my original post carefully enough. In fact, cotinine levels in hookah smokers WAS higher than controls, just not higher than the cigarette smokers.

Why compare hookah to cigarettes rather than cigars or pipes? Because hookah and cigarettes are both inhaled, while the other forms are not. This seems simple enough to me.

[mgcsinc]

Apparently it was scrapped and is now brought back. A french scientist has been researching the effects of hookah for the last 10 years, his research shows that hoffman's reports and many other scientists from years back were infact correct

Be careful before you believe or cite Dr. Kamal Chaouachi. His background is, apparently, not scientific. Additionally, he is a loose cannon (based on my personal communications with him, during which he accused me of being part of a massive conspiracy, going so far as to ask me to reveal the names of those 'hiding in the shadows behind me'), and has been publicly discredited more than once.