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Smoking shisha is indeed bad for your health – cancer bad, according to new findings published by Qatar researchers.
Smoking shisha has been known to cause cancer of the head, neck, esophagus, stomach, lung and bladder, a study from Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) has found.
To arrive at their findings, the researchers compiled the results of 28 other studies on the subject.
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However, they warned that further study is needed, because many reports involved subjects who also smoked cigarettes.
Over the past two years, HMC has been working on this by interviewing individuals who have smoked shisha daily for the past decade, but have never used cigarettes.
Popular pastime
Shisha smoking is a popular social pastime in the Middle East. According to Weill Cornell’s study, it has gained popularity among younger people, including in Qatar, for several reasons:
- It is perceived that this form of tobacco exposure is much safer than cigarette smoking, since tobacco smoke is filtered through water;
- The cost of waterpipe smoking is lower than cigarette smoking, which in most countries is heavily taxed;
- Hookah bars are often excluded from regulations pertaining to indoor smoking; and
- The health effects of waterpipe smoking are less well known, especially with respect to the risk of cancer.
However, according to the study, a shisha smoking session can expose a person to up to 50 liters of smoke in 45 minutes, compared to one liter of smoke by someone inhaling a cigarette for five minutes.
It continued:
“Water-pipe smokers are exposed to tar, addictive nicotine, carbon monoxide, and other harmful substances at similar levels and sometimes greater levels than cigarette smokers.”
Additionally, just as second-hand cigarette smoke is a known risk factor for cancer, the high levels of side-stream smoke in waterpipe cafes can lead to increased levels of tobacco-related nitrosamines.
This is a chemical compound that causes cancer in both smokers and non-smokers exposed to the ambient air of waterpipe cafes.
Why Qatar needs to worry
According to a 2012 World Health Organization study on Qatar, 29.1 percent of men in Qatar smoke, as well as 0.6 percent of women.
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The report added that in the country, “over one third of cancers could be prevented by eliminating shared risk factors, namely tobacco use, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.”
And shisha itself is becoming more popular.
Quoting unpublished WCM-Q data, the current study mentioned:
“Among adolescents in Qatar aged 15-18 years, 13 percent reported they had tried cigarettes and 22 percent that they had tried water-pipe. Among college students in Qatar, 27 percent said they were regular or social cigarette smokers, and 32 percent regular or social water-pipe smokers.”
Regulation
The negative health effects between shisha smoking and cancer are not new, and authorities have been trying to regulate shisha bars in recent years.
Their usage has been curbed in residential areas and in 2015, Katara banned all smoking in public areas.
A ban was also attempted at Souq Waqif before that, but was lifted for being impractical.
Qatar is also considering the implementation of a stricter anti-smoking law that would be enforced with stiffer penalties.
Thoughts?
(The post WCM-Q study: Smoking shisha can indeed kill you is from Doha News.)