Are hookah or shisha water pipes safer than cigarettes?

Are hookah or shisha water pipes safer than cigarettes?

Linda Hyder Ferry (Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine and Family Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: What is a 'hookah' or 'shisha'?; Are hookah or shisha water pipes safer than cigarettes?; What is a 'bidi'? and more...

In fact, research in the last few years has shown that the amount of nicotine that you get from smoking a hookah pipe or shisha through these water pipes actually has a very high level of nicotine, and it does not decrease significantly, as you would think through bubbling through water, the particulate effect in the airways - such as someone with asthma would be sensitive to. So hookah pipe smoking is not safe, and will never be safe, because tobacco particulates, when heated and burned, carry toxic, carcinogenic and addictive substances, even though the carbon monoxide level might be a little lower depending on the method you use. I would never recommend someone using that as an alternative to smoking. The other interesting thing is that when you share, or use a hookah pipe yourself, you're usually doing this for a much more prolonged period of time, not just a 3 to 7 minute puff of 6 to 10 puffs on a cigarette. So the amount of toxins you're exposed to is much higher.