Shisha Smoking More Harmful Than Cigarettes
By Sobrina Rosli

Bandar Seri Begawan - Shisha smokers who regard shisha as another form of smoking with a lower risk should reconsider their thoughts. Its long and short term effects have been revealed by the Health Education and Promotion Unit of the Ministry of Health.

According to research result issued by the Unit, 45 minutes of shisha smoking is equivalent to smoking 50 tobacco cigarettes.

Shisha is a smoking device comprising of a hard body, a water pipe, hose and clay pot, where the substance burnt is a mix of tobacco, honey and fruit flavouring.

"You can actually see, roughly, that there are places here promoting shisha smoking. Some people do not know that they are actually exhaling tobacco, because some tobacco products used in shisha smoking do not have warning labels," said Dr Zulhilmi Abdullah, a Senior Medical Officer from the Health Education and Promotion Unit.

It was founded that smoking shisha for 45 minutes means consuming tar equivalent in 20 tobacco cigarettes.

Some short term effects of shisha smoking are that after 45 minutes of shisha smoking, the level of carbon monoxide, nicotine, and heartbeat rate will be high. The 45 minutes of shisha smoking will also expose the smoker to twice the level of carbon monoxide and three times the level of nicotine, compared to one tobacco cigarette.

This is because the average time a person smokes shisha is 50 minutes as opposed to one cigarette, where it usually only takes five minutes. Similar to tobacco smoking, a shisha smoker is at risk of addiction as well as being exposed to Cadmium, a chemical element known to cause cancer.

Long term health effects are a higher risk of cancer, such as lung and mouth cancers. Shisha smoking among pregnant mothers is risky to the baby as well, since the child may face underweight problems and difficulty in breathing.

Some shisha tobaccos do not contain nicotine, but the reduction of tobacco would be replaced by higher levels of glycerin, which can cause poisoning in the body. Shisha, unlike cigarette tobacco, does not normally contain harmful additives. Cigarette additives, although approved as food additives, have been shown to create carcinogenic compounds when burned. Cigarette tobacco is known to have around 600 additives, including urea and citronella oil. When these additives are burned, the smoke they create contains around 4000 compounds, many of which have been known to cause cancer.

In Brunei, cancer is known as the biggest killer, followed by heart ailments. The dreadful diseases claimed 215 lives in 2005, where trachea, bronchus and lung cancer claimed 51 lives.

Worldwide, the main types of cancer causing deaths are: lung with 1.3 million deaths per year; stomach with almost one million deaths, liver with 662,000 deaths; colon with 655,000 deaths and breast with 502,000 deaths. -- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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