Abstract

Waterpipe tobacco smoking (WTS) is increasingly popular among young people. Although perceived to be safer than cigarettes as smoke is filtered through water, narghile smoke is rich in carbon

Abstract

Waterpipe tobacco smoking (WTS) is increasingly popular among young people. Although perceived to be safer than cigarettes as smoke is filtered through water, narghile smoke is rich in carbon monoxide, as well as containing numerous toxins and carcinogens. Detrimental effects of WTS may include nicotine addiction, bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and enhancing asthma susceptibility and exacerbations.

Keywords

Waterpipe smoking, narghile, asthma, bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Disclosure

Yousser Mohammad, Loai Nahass, Ismael Zakaria and Bisher Sawaf have no conflicts of interest to disclose in relation to this article.

Review Process

This article is a short opinion piece and has not been submitted to external peer reviewers. A member of the Editorial Board reviewed the article before publication.

Authorship

The named authors meet the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship of this manuscript, take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, and have given final approval for the version to be published.

Open Access

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, adaptation, and reproduction provided the original authors and source are given appropriate credit. © The Authors 2018.

Received

August 03, 2018

Published Online

September 17, 2018

Correspondence

Yousser Mohammad. Department of Internal Medicine, Tishreen University, Latakia, Syria. E: ccollaborating@gmail.com

Support

No funding was received in the publication of this article.