As you know, it's virtually impossible to elude constant warnings about all the dangers associated with smoking, from very explicit labeling on cigarette packaging to public service announcements aired 24/7 on broadcast media. But it hasn't stopped folks from looking for "safer" alternatives to smoking anyway, like the e-cigarette, a product that contains, not only nicotine, but an toxic assortment of goodies, like a compound used to produce antifreeze.

You can add the hookah, a waterpipe that has been used in the Middle East and Asia for centuries and has grown in popularity among young American adults over the past decade, as equally hazardous to one's health.

Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University and American University of Beirut launched the study to compare which delivery system -- cigarettes or hookah pipes -- exposed 31 patients between ages 18-50 to more toxic substances over two 45-minute sessions, while measuring nicotine and carbon monoxide levels in their blood.

Although the levels of nicotine at their peak didn't vary, patients were exposed to far more carbon monoxide when smoking a hookah. Compared to cigarettes, the amount of carbon monoxide found in the blood of patients at the peak waterpipe COHb level (the amount bound to red blood cells) was three times greater. Patients inhaled some 48 times more smoke when using a hookah too.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol. 37, No. 6, pp. 518-523, December 2009

ABC News December 7, 2009

EurekAlert December 2, 2009