Hookahs have been used for tobacco smoking in Africa and Asia for nearly 400 years. Nowadays, this tobacco use is spreading all over the world. In Sweden, 27 percent of everyone over the age of 15 has tried smoking a hookah, according to the Swedish National Institute of Public Health. One in three boys and one in four girls in grade 9 and over 60 percent of young people in grade 2 at high school had smoked a hookah in 2009.

There is a myth that hookah smoking is safer than smoking cigarettes – that the smoke is somehow “purified” as it passes through the water container. However, a growing body of research shows that the health risks of hookah smoking are the same as those of cigarettes, and they are significant.

In the current study, 251 people with lung cancer were compared with 500 healthy controls. Not surprisingly, both cigarette and water pipe smoking significantly increased the risk of lung cancer. The greatest increase in risk – a six-fold increase compared to non-smoking – was seen in those who smoked water pipes only.

Here you can download the article about the study in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention.

Here you can download a report from the Swedish National Institute of Public Health, "Hookah - smoke without risk?"