Sunday, 29 December 2013
SHISHA SMOKING AND EFFECTS TO YOUR HEALTH....Kenyan daily digest
Shisha smoking
Shisha smoking – also called hookah, narghile,
waterpipe, or hubble bubble smoking – is a way of smoking
tobacco, sometimes mixed with fruit or molasses
sugar, through a bowl
and hose or tube.
The tube ends in a mouthpiece from which
the smoker inhales the smoke from the substances being burnt into
their lungs.
Shisha smoking is traditionally used by people
from Middle Eastern or Asian community groups but is becoming
increasingly popular among all groups in cities around the
UK.
Shisha smoking: the facts
What is in a shisha pipe?
Shisha pipes use tobacco sweetened with fruit
or molasses sugar, which makes the smoke more aromatic than
cigarette smoke. Popular flavourings include apple, plum, coconut,
mango, mint, strawberry and cola. Wood, coal, or charcoal
is burned in the shisha pipe to heat the tobacco and create
the smoke because the fruit syrup or sugar makes the tobacco
damp.
When you smoke shisha, you and anyone sitting
near you are breathing in smoke which releases toxins
including carbon monoxide and heavy metals –reducing your body’s
ability to carry oxygen around in your blood.
How harmful is shisha smoking?
Traditionally shisha tobacco contains cigarette tobacco, so like cigarettes it
contains nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide and heavy metals, such as
arsenic and lead. As a result, shisha smokers are at risk of the
same kinds of diseases as cigarette smokers, such as heart disease,
cancer, respiratory disease and problems during pregnancy.
It’s difficult to say exactly how much smoke
or toxic substances you’re exposed to in a typical shisha
session.People smoke shisha for much longer periods of time than
they smoke a cigarette, and in one puff of shisha
you inhale the same amount of smoke as you’d get
from a smoking a whole cigarette.
The average shisha-smoking session lasts an
hour and research has shown that in this time you can inhale the
same amount of smoke as from more than 100
cigarettes.
Some people mistakenly think that
shisha smoking is not addictive because the water
used in the pipe can absorb nicotine. In
reality, because only some of the nicotine is absorbed by the
water, shisha smokers are still exposed to enough nicotine to cause
an addiction.
Is herbal shisha safer?
No it isn’t. Shisha, herbal or otherwise,
usually contains tobacco. Fruit or herbal flavours do not mean the
product is healthy. Even if you use tobacco-free shisha, you’re
still at risk from the carbon monoxide and any toxins in the coal
or charcoal used to burn the shisha.
Second hand smoke is also a worry. If you’re smoking with other
people or in a public place and the shisha includes cigarette
tobacco, it’s likely you’ll breathe in their second hand smoke
too.Who uses shisha?
Shisha smoking is traditionally used by
people from Middle Eastern or Asian community groups but is
becoming increasingly popular in cities around the UK.
Recent data on shisha shows it’s getting used
more widely. Two in five local authorities we
surveyed said they’d seen an increase in the number of
shisha bars since 2007, with research showing that one in 10
Caucasian people have now tried it.
,,Kenyan daily digest
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LIFESTYLE
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