Researcher awarded NCI grant to study effects of waterpipe smoking

By Sathya Achia Abraham

A Virginia Commonwealth University psychology professor has received a National Cancer Institute grant totaling more than $2.8 million to study and identify toxins in waterpipe tobacco smoke – another potentially lethal form of tobacco use — and determine the extent to which waterpipe smokers are exposed to these toxins. 

In the past eight to 10 years, smoking tobacco with a waterpipe, also called a hookah or shisha, has grown in popularity in the United States, especially among adults 18 to 24 years of age. The belief among some waterpipe users is that this method of smoking tobacco delivers less tar and nicotine than regular cigarette smoking and has fewer adverse health effects.

“Waterpipe tobacco smoking is a little-understood, but rapidly emerging strain in the nation’s tobacco use epidemic and is becoming a growing public health concern,” said Thomas Eissenberg, Ph.D., associate professor in the VCU Department of Psychology and principal investigator on the grant. The grant also involves Alan Shihadeh, Ph.D., with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

The five-year project will examine the effects of smoking waterpipe tobacco on the heart, lungs and cell biology in individual users by measuring their toxin exposure as well as the toxin content of waterpipe tobacco smoke. Secondly, Eissenberg and his team will study group waterpipe tobacco smoking in hookah cafes – again examining its effects and levels of toxin exposure and content. The team will compare effects, toxin exposure and content between waterpipe tobacco smoking and cigarette smoking.

“The information we gain through our study may help prevent future waterpipe use by providing evidence-based information to potential users, who are currently misled by product labeling that suggests that waterpipe use is associated with minimal nicotine and no “tar,” said Eissenberg, who is director, of the VCU Clinical Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory and a researcher with the VCU Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies.

In a hookah, tobacco is heated by charcoal, and the resulting smoke is passed through a water-filled chamber, cooling the smoke before it reaches the smoker.

Waterpipes originated hundreds of years ago and were popular primarily among men in Southwest Asia and North Africa who used them to smoke tobacco in cafes. After falling out of favor, the popularity of hookahs started to increase again in the late 1990s, and usage has spread to big cities and college towns in the United States.