More and more scientists are warning of the dangers of shisha. However, its consumption is increasing among adolescents.
Strawberry, mint or even peach taste, chicha is a delight for young people. And if the medical community has been denouncing the dangers of hookah for several years, a new study published in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, shows that its consumption is on the rise in the United States, among adolescents.
Public health issue
The research team was based on a series of questionnaires addressed to 8,737 high school students, relating to their consumption habits. According to the answers collected, more and more of them smoke shisha at least once a year. This is the case for 20% of high school students in the “senior” class, the equivalent of terminale in the United States.
Among them, 38% would use even more frequently, at least six times a year. The latter are considered by scientists as regular smokers, because the amount of tar inhaled in six sessions is equal to that absorbed by smoking at least one pack of cigarettes every month.
The main author of this work, Dr. Brian Primack, believes that this phenomenon is becoming a major public health problem. “A growing proportion of people, especially teenagers, smoke shisha frequently enough for it to become a real health concern nationwide,” he observes.
Remember the dangers
The increase in consumption among young people must be accompanied by communication and prevention measures on the dangers of chicha, which are often less well understood than those of cigarettes, recommend the researchers.
Already on the occasion of the 16and world conference on the dangers of tobacco, last march, the alarm bell had been sounded by the scientific community. The WHO recalls that “the harmful effects of hookah include an impact on the respiratory system, the cardiovascular system, the mouth and the teeth”.
In addition to containing the metals present in the cigarette, the smoke of the shisha would carry nearly 4,000 chemical substances, resulting from the coal, the coating of the stove and the column, the pipe or the aluminum foil.
A shisha session is therefore not as innocuous as it seems, especially since it is increasingly considered as a gateway to smoking. This is why the public authorities, in the United States as in Europe, are beginning to take measures to better regulate its consumption. They will now also have to manage the emergence of new products, such as the shisha pen, or e-shisha.
.
