Hookah use is associated with an increased risk of death from liver cancer, lung cancer, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and stomach cancer.
- Smoking hookah exclusively increases the risk of death from cancer more than smoking cigarettes only.
- In men, the cancers in question were liver, lung, stomach and nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
- Quitting smoking for 10 years reduces the risk of cancer death in men.
“There is a growing trend worldwide towards the use of products other than cigarettes, including waterpipe tobacco. Although smoking is a well-established risk factor for many cancers, little is known about the association between shisha smoking and cancer mortality,” wrote scientists from Hanoi Medical University (Vietnam) in a study published in the journal JAMA Oncology.
As part of this work, the team wanted to assess the association between hookah use and the risk of cancer mortality. To do this, they used data from a Vietnamese cohort, carried out from 2007 to 2019, involving 39,401 people aged over 15. Participants were asked to indicate whether they smoked only shisha, only cigarettes, or both. According to the data, 559 participants died during the research.
Liver, lung, stomach: Exclusive hookah smokers have a higher risk of dying from cancer
The results revealed that, compared with adults who had never smoked, those who had ever smoked had a significantly increased risk of cancer mortality. Exclusive hookah smokers had the highest risk of cancer death compared with volunteers who had never smoked. The risk of cancer mortality was higher among participants who used hookah and smoked cigarettes than among exclusive cigarette users.
“Since most smokers were men, these trends were more evident among male participants,” the study reads. Compared with adults who had never smoked, hookah use in men was associated with an elevated risk of death from liver cancer, lung cancer, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and stomach cancer. For exclusive hookah users, the risk of cancer mortality was highest among those who smoked 11 to 15 times a day, started smoking between the ages of 26 and 30, smoked for 9 to 20 years, and smoked 61 to 160 times a year.
Quitting smoking for at least 10 years reduces the risk of mortality
According to the authors, the risk of cancer death in men was lower in those who had quit smoking for more than 10 years than in those who had quit smoking for less than a year. “A tailored aspiration tobacco control programme is warranted in Vietnam and in low- and middle-income countries where smoking prevalence is high and resources devoted to tobacco-related problems are modest,” scientists concluded.
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