By
Pg Anuar Husaini Pg Hj Rambli,
Health Education Officer,
Health Promotion & Education Division,
Department of Health Services
What is the current trend of smoking sisha?
Smoking sisha has been practiced centuries ago, but where it originated has yet to be conffirmed. Long ago, it was thought that countries such as China, India, Pakistan and the Eastern Mediterranean were the early users of sisha.
At that time, smoking sisha was not that popular until in the 1980s, where a boom in sisha use increased, especially among youngsters, who opted to try sisha and perceived its use as a modern trend and fashion.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), sisha smoking are widely practiced among the Arabs and Southeast Asians.
It is easily available in many public places such as supermarkets, restaurants and cafes.
Is it true that sisha is categorised as 'low risk' towards a person's health?
The perception of sisha having a 'low risk' towards one's health, when compared to the risk involved from smoking cigarettes, has often been raised in our daily conversations.
This kind of perception is obviously wrong, and often results in confusion among sisha users.
Sisha users often think that smoking sisha is safe because it uses fruity flavours instead of tobacco, and in addition, water is used to filter and smoke the flavours.
But in reality, sisha is still considered as one of the many dangerous tobacco products that are disguised as a friendly looking form, like having fruity flavours.
Furthermore, the smoke that comes out through the water in sishas has no form of filtration at all, compared to the filter attached to a cigarette.
Having explained, it clearly shows that smoking sisha is far more hazardous than smoking cigarettes. Sisha users will be exposed to similar, if not more, negative health effects compared to cigarette smoking.
Is sisha really hazardous to one's health?
Studies have shown that using sisha for a duration of 45 minutes is equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes.
Even with the indicative nature of this fact, there are still some users who still think that sisha is not hazardous.
A single cigarette contains more than 4,000 different types of dangerous chemicals, so just imagine the effect of 50 cigarettes!
As we all know, cigarette users are exposed to hundreds of dangerous cigarette contents, which include carbon monoxide, carcinogens and nicotine; where these chemicals are capable of causing negative effects to one's health, such as cancers, heart diseases and nicotine addiction.
Sisha users are not exceptional and will be exposed to the same negative effects.
The content of carbon monoxide inside a sisha apparatus may depend on the size of the sisha packets, type of tobacco and charcoal used.
Smoking sisha for duration of 45 minutes will also produce unfiltered-smoke that contains tar, which is equivalent to tar that are produced from 20 cigarettes.
Furthermore, the fruity-flavoured used in sishas are made from processed contaminated fruits, where the fruits have been changed to alcohol.
From several studies that have been conducted, short-term health effects from using sisha include:
* After 45 minutes of smoking sisha, the level of carbon monoxide in one's breath, nicotine level in the body and heart rate are found to be abnormally high.
* Smoking sisha for 45 minutes will expose the user to twice the carbon monoxide and thrice the nicotine in the body compared to a single cigarette exposure.
The high concentrations of the two chemicals are time-based; ie normally smoking sisha takes about 50 minutes whereas smoking a cigarette takes about 5 minutes. The difference in time of usage is the main cause of the increase in carbon monoxide and nicotine level.
* Smoking sisha also exposes the user to cadmium, which is found in cigarettes as well as car batteries.
* Smoking sisha also causes nicotine addiction, especially if the user is a frequent sisha user. At the moment, there are no studies done to show that quitting sisha causes withdrawal symptoms.
Even so, signs of sisha addiction can be clearly seen: continuous use of sisha, wasting money to use sisha and difficulty in quitting.
* Sharing of sisha from one's mouth to the mouth of others is a high-risk habit that can lead to the dangers of oral infection, such as tuberculosis, and viral infections, such as herpes and hepatitis.
Studies also show that frequent use of sisha can cause long-term damage to one's health such as:
* Sisha users are exposed to the risk of cancer and the risk increases with the usage of cigarettes. Some predisposing cancers include cancer of the bronchus, lungs and mouth.
The main cancer-causing chemical in sisha is called 'Nitrosamine', which is also found in cigarettes.
* Users are also susceptible to atherosclerosis, Coronary Heart Disease, lung diseases, eczema on the hands (affecting those with poor immune system) and dry mouth.
* Pregnant women who smoke sisha are also risking the development of afterbirth side effects to their newborn such as low birth weight and difficulty in breathing.
* Some sishas do not contain high amounts of nicotine, but with the reduction in the concentration of nicotine, the amount of 'glycerin' in the sisha tobaccos increases. Glycerin is toxic to the user's body especially to the lungs and can cause emphysema (a lung disease that causes signs of asthma, a difficult disease to cure).
- Ministry of Health's public awareness programme
Source: Borneo Bulettin Weekend, 21 June 2008
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