A mouse study has revealed that smoking hookah—inhaling tobacco through a long water pipe—can cause blood to function abnormally and clot.
The study, headed by Fadi Khasawneh, PhD, of the University of Texas at El Paso, was published Jan. 16 in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. Khasawneh et al. said the number of U.S.-based hookah lounges more than doubled between 2011 and 2015, but while a previous American Heart Association Scientific Statement notes the dangers of inhaling hookah, scientists hadn’t before made a direct connection between the smoking method and vascular function.
“Hookah smoking, which is becoming more popular in Western countries, is perceived as less harmful than cigarettes, yet hookahs carry a toxic profile that is thought to be comparable to or even exceed that of traditional cigarettes,” Khasawneh said in a release. “Some studies have found that the smoke emitted from one hookah tobacco smoking episode contains significantly more harmful chemicals compared to a single cigarette.”
That could have something to do with the additives included to flavor the smoke—additives that have also been found harmful in e-cigarettes.
For their work, Khasawneh and colleagues exposed mice to hookah smoke from a smoking machine that mimicked real-life smoking habits. The machine used 12 grams of commercially available, flavored tobacco that included glycerin, molasses and natural flavoring with nicotine and tar.
Comparing platelet activity among mice exposed to the hookah smoke to that observed among unexposed mice, the authors found hookah smoke caused abnormalities in the rodents’ blood flow. Tobacco smoke from a hookah caused blood clots to form within around 11 seconds in exposed mice, compared to an average of 5 minutes in mice not exposed to hookah smoke.
“Our findings provide evidence that hookah smoking is as unhealthy—if not more so—than traditional cigarettes,” Khasawneh said. “Smoking a hookah, cigarettes, e-cigarettes or other forms of tobacco all increase your risk for heart disease and stroke.”
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.