Is Smoking Hookah Bad?
There has been an immense surge in the number of young people starting to smoke hookah, assuming that nothing is bad in doing that. They think this is not like smoking cigarettes so how can it be bad for health after all. In short, smoking hookah is even worse and its adverse effects on health are huge.
Is Smoking Hookah Bad?
Hookah has been around for ages. In the middle east and South Asia, it has been used for centuries – and the ill effects of smoking hookah are well known.
A hookah consists of a bowl, a water pipe with a smoke chamber and a hose. The tobacco inside the bowl gets heated. When the smoker inhales through the pipe, the smoke passes through the water and to the mouthpiece. The bowl of the hookah is often made colorful with intricate designs to make it attractive to the young crowd. Most often, other flavors are added due to which the smokers tend to get deceived into smoking hookah.
The tobacco used in a hookah is much worse in quality than used in the cigarettes. Therefore, the smoke from a hookah contains a lot of carcinogens, or cancer causing chemicals, besides many other toxic compounds that are extremely harmful to the lungs. Secondly, the smokers inhale a large amount of smoke each time making it even more harmful. Second hand smokers are at even greater risk.
It has been observed that almost all hookah smokers develop lung and oral cancers. Heart diseases are also pretty common in all smokers. The teeth of the hookah smokers develop dark irremovable stains besides gum diseases.
Since a hookah is not a disposable device, it is reused or used in a group where after each use a smoker passes on the pipe to the next smoker in the group. Since the smokers often have oral infections, it is easy to pass over infections to other smokers.