cancer

[escudo]

i kno i might sound retarded but is there any possibility of me developing cancer later on in life if i smoke hookah?

[mushrat]

yes.
Inhaling foreign matter into your lungs can cause cancer. period.
Ma'asell is tobacco mixed with all sorts of other goodies. Tobacco has been shown to cause cancer.
Tobacco and smoke can also cause throat,tongue,and mouth cancer.
Better not to start to be honest.
You asked....

[Stew]

The chances of cancer increase with the ammount you smoke, it also has
to do with the fertilizer used to grow the tobacco. A certain type, I
forget the name, of fertilizer is radioactive and that's what causes
cancer, not the tar.

Some members have mentioned that they smoke upto and over 4 bowls a
day. This can happen as a new hookah owner as you are so excited to
have it that you smoke whenever possible. My friend, who introduced me
to hookah, smokes only a few times a month on special occasions or
gatherings. He's made it more of a ritual than a habit.

So I suppose my tip would be to keep it in moderation and don't buy huge ammounts of tobacco at a time.

[mushrat]

Stew,
  I may be wrong, But he radioactive material you are thinking of is carbon...14...i believe and it is created when you SMOKE the tobacco. There is no radioactive fertilizer. That much I know. I find it interesting that you had heard that someplace.
  Some carcinogens are a natural part of the plant, many are added in processing, especially cigarettes. The other factor is the introduction or smoke (particulate matter) into your lungs, throat, nose, mouth, tongue, etc. These can cause irritation, lesions, and eventually cancer.
Plainly said, the less often you smoke, the less likely you are to develope cancer. To not smoke at all GREATLY reduces your chance. Course you could also get bumped off by a bus crossing the street by your house so why worry...
I'd be more worried about the chemicals in my food,water, and air.
$.02

[escudo]

sorry im jus a lil paranoid, i worry bout many things alot..... but i wana make sure.....  i heard the water purifies the smoke or w/e....  i mean smoking cigars are far worse than hookahs right?  its my 1st time so im rlly scared of getting cancer or w/e.... would i die early?  i kno i sound paranoid, but i wna make sure... would i die early because of this? if so its not worth it......  ok so the question is.... would i die early by smokin hokah at the age of 18??  and for those ppl who hav been doin this, is it safe?

[Highpockets]

The scientific literature on shisha smoking is not well developed. All
we can be sure of is that smoking the shisha increases your risk factor
relative to abstaining from smoking. Of course, as I say this, I'm
smoking AF Cherry. Go figure.

[mushrat]

Escudo,
Don't smoke the hookah.
Actually. Very few, if any, cigar smokers inhale. Cigars are a "taste" enjoyment. I've been smoking cigars about 20 years now and the reason cigar smokers smoke cigars is for the taste in our mouths. We may inhale a little, I do to pass it through my nose now and then, but unlike a hookah, we puff, not deep inhale.
I don't know about you others, but I inhale my hookah smoke. I even hold it for a few seconds before exhaleing sometimes. I have to do this to get a proper draw and keep my ma'asell up to temp and my coals hot. You can't accomplish this by mouth puffing.
This means I'm running an even greater risk of mouth,nose,throat,tongue, etc cancer. Did I mention the regular pipe I smoke as well? About the only thing I *don't* smoke is cigarettes. Atleast I'm not getting the 100+ extra chemicals cigarette companies add in processing.
But heck, I figure between all the drugs I did when i was younger, The pesticides,herbacides, and toxic waste I was exposed to as an archaeologist, plus everything I eat,drink, and breathe in my day to day life why not enjoy myself a little more..we all gotta die sometime, somehow.
WILL you die early? too soon to tell. COULD you die early? YES.
Try sky diving and unprotected sex...MUCH more fun :-)

[NERV]

eh, yes it is a danger, but i tihnk its worth it, if i can derive some
enjoyment from sometihng that will reduce my lifespan why not? rather
have a shorte rmor eenjoyable life than a long boring one, and you know
like 100-200 years ago the average lifespan wasnt even 40, and now ppl
are worried about 'not making it' to 60? feh

[wyteboy]

yes smoking anything can cause cancer but this type of smoke has very very few toxins compared to other types of smoke ppl do and also, I inhale it VERY little, just to taste it fully and then exhale...
watching too much tv or looking at stars can also cause cancer so, eh
anything in moderation is fine
for me, I will be smoking a ton in the beginning to try out a ton of new flavors and brands in the beginning (thanks to cypress!!) and then I hope to turn the hookah into a casual habit just for relaxing or social purposes, maybe use it once every 2 weeks or so. I wonder if that's naive considering I will prob smoke a bowl every 2 days or so for the first month or so

[linkdead]

I always figure that when I go out to the pub I inhale more cigarette
smoke in those few hours than I inhale through my hookah in a year. But
I really smoke like 1x per week or even less  - 1x in 2
weeks.  So if I would be living in a clear enviroment, and there
would be no smog, smoke in pubs, smoke when I stand arround people on a
smoke-break at work ... then probably introducing hookah smoke into the
equation would increase the chance greatly ... as it is, I don't really
think  it really tips the scale either way.

If I would be smoking considerably more, it would probably have greater impact - I guess moderation is really the key.

[escudo]

i see.... well how old are you all?  and when did you start?  does anybody have health probmlem BECAUSE of the hookah? 

[NERV]

im 19, started at 16, no problems so far

[linkdead]

26 ... started  1,5 years ago.

If you allow me to give you some advice:

Smoking a hookah is not healthy. How significantly it impacts your body
probably depends on your body, and of frequency you use it, but you
will really never know.

If you have your own doubts, If you feel it is not good for you and it impacts your body in a significant way - don't smoke.

Smoking a hookah is primarily a way of relaxation. If you can not relax
while doing it, if you can not really enjoy it in your heart and soul,
the whole thing loses it's importance ... it becomes just doing
something for the sake of doing it.

Wether the risk vs. the reward is good enough for you, you have to
decide yourself, it is your body after all and none of us here can say:
"do it " or  "don't do it". No matter what you do, you will never
get percentages and statistics or any other data to calculate the exact
risk.

One other thing about cancer of any kind is that cancer is a highly
auto-sugestive sickness, so if you spend the next 15 years smoking a
hookah while telling yourself "it is bad for me and I will get cancer
from it", there is a great chance you will in fact get it.

My 2 cents.

Cheers!

[MR Bubble]

Good advice, linkdead. The Germans say Cancer is "A sickness of the soul." Makes perfect sense.
MR Bubble

[wyteboy]

just wondering how you know that about cancer being auto-suggestive? never heard that before...I am intrigued.

[NERV]

alot of diseases are somewhat autosuggestive, the human is body is more
resilient than ppl tihnk, if you believe that you will get better it
can work, thats why placebos and faith healings sometimes 'work'

[linkdead]

If you go ask any doc about cancer, most of them will tell you that
patients with positive attitude have a much greater chance of getting
well and those with negative have a great chance of cancer spreading no
matter what terapies/procedures the docs put in.

We still don't know the real origin of cancer ... Why do certain cells
of our body degenerate in such way. We know external influences like
food/drink/enviroment can impact the possibility od cancer develompent,
but you can keep 2 people under exact same conditions, and one of them
getting it and other one not.

One of the theories about it is that cancer develops as our bodies
react to out psychical state like stress, depression, anxiety etc. -
Probably origin in eastern medicine where they basicaly don't separate
physical from the psychical, but rather think of it as a single entity,
while western medicine does - both approaches have their rights and
their wrongs probably.

For example, there were also occurences, where the patient in a highly
developed state of cancer self-healed with shrink's help.  How
does it works we still don't know.