AUB and VCU awarded $2.8m to study toxin exposure and health efects of narghile smoking

Led by Professors Thomas Eissenberg at VCU and Alan Shihadeh at AUB, the team will conduct a multi-disciplinary study which combines clinical research methods, state-of-the-art technology developed at AUB, analytical chemistry, and cellular biology to examine the effects of smoking water pipe tobacco on the heart, lungs and cell biology in individual users by measuring their toxin exposure as well as the toxin content of water pipe tobacco smoke.

The team will also study group water pipe tobacco smoking in cafés - examining the effects of sharing a water pipe on levels of toxin exposure and content.

Finally, the team will compare toxin exposure and effects between water pipe tobacco smoking and cigarette smoking.

"This grant is a major milestone for a research project that started with a seemingly simple question from one of my mechanical engineering students at Birzeit University in 1999: "is narghile smoke as bad as cigarette smoke?". That question, an old laptop computer, and a borrowed vacuum pump turned out to be the start of an incredibly surprising and challenging journey with laypersons, scientists, and students at AUB and around the world," said Shihadeh.

Instrument development and analytical laboratory work will be carried out at AUB by Professors Alan Shihadeh, from mechanical engineering, Najat Saliba, from chemistry, and Marwan El Sabban, from human morphology.

Meanwhile, the clinical research and field observations will be conducted at Virginia Commonwealth University by Professors Thomas Eissenberg, Michael Weaver, and Kirk Brown.

Globally, tobacco use accounts for 4.9 million deaths each year. While extensive research describes cigarette smoking, little is known about narghile water pipe smoking, whose use has spread rapidly worldwide, thus constituting a major part of the global tobacco use epidemic.

Shihadeh explained that the study will address "frequent but probably erroneous statements regarding water pipe 'filtering' and lower toxicant levels relative to cigarette smoke."

Research on tobacco cigarette smoking is known to lead to positive health impacts since it helps tobacco control experts improve their anti-tobacco campaigns, noted Shihadeh. "This project seeks similar positive outcomes on another potentially lethal form of tobacco use."