Is Hookah trend affecting youths badly ?

Hubble-bubble, Water pipes, Chillum, Lulava, Ghalyan and by the name of which most people know that Hookah is used all over the world. Now, these days it has become popular around the world through young stars. Even in India, many restaurants have opened hookah lounges along with bars. Most of the people think that smoking hookah is safer than cigarettes. Even in every hookah bar, there is an isolated room for smoking cigarettes but you can smoke hookah openly. This makes people think strongly that hookah is totally safe for our health. But the real fact is completely different.

Do you know Hookah is 100 times more dangerous than cigarettes?


So, let’s know is hookah really bad for our health or not? What does modern science say about it?

But at first, it is important to know how it’s made?

Hookah comes in various size, shape & style. The vase is filled with ice cubes & water to submerge the down stem. The bowl is then covered with a crannied foil. Next, the heated coals are placed on top of the foil sheet which causes the tobacco in the bowl to heat up and smoke. Sucking through the hose draws more heat on the tobacco and helps accelerate the heat transfer.

How does it work?

So, whenever you blow through the hose, the downward pressure on air decreases in the vase, where the water starts rising. After this, air pressure starts decreasing in the stem. Then smokes come down through tobacco, which is burning by the coal placed above and passing through the water spreads to its vacant place and then comes out of the pipe.

You can buy different flavors of tobacco such as apple, mint, cherry, chocolate, coconut, pun, cappuccino, watermelon etc. to make smoking easeful as possible. The other name of hookah tobacco is “shisha”.

Why it is bad for our health?

There are various misconceptions among people about hookah.

1. Many people think through water, smoke gets filtered. So, it’s not harmful to us. That’s not true. Because the molecules of tar and nicotine don’t get connected to the molecules of water and they come out of the water.

2. People think if they smoke herbal, nicotine-free hookah, then it is totally safe. Ok, if we accept this logic that the flavors that are inserted in chillum/flames don’t have tobacco, but one thing you can’t deny that the smoke, which is coming out of the coal is Carbon Monoxide which increases the risks for smoking-related cancers, heart- disease and lung disease.

3. Apart from these, some people believe that the “Shisha” which is inserted in the chillum is made of real fruits, which is beneficial for our health. But the fact is as the flavors burn at such a high temperature, the molecule of fruit vitamin breaks down. Then it doesn’t work much for our body.

4. But still, people think that hookah is better than cigarettes as cigarettes burn at 450°C-900°C whereas in hookah “Shisha” burns only at 500°C. But the smoke of the hookah is much thicker than cigarettes. People smoke hookah for a long time than cigarettes. For this more Carbon Monoxide, metal & cancer-causing chemicals go into the body than a cigarette. Even like cigarette, nicotine & Carbon Monoxide which are also present in hookah, break the upper layer of the blood vessel and because of this, fat store stats gradually from the broken place which stops the blood flow.

So, this article is for those, especially for youths who enjoy hookah without knowing its harsh truth.

      

Source: BBC, Wikipedia & Wikihow.