Shisha and hookah
Health awareness information for people who use shisha.
What is shisha?
Shisha is also known as hookah, hubble-bubble and narghile.
It’s usually flavoured tobacco mixed with molasses, making it taste sweeter and burn longer.
You can also get tobacco and nicotine-free versions in paste and gel form.
Shisha is heated with charcoal and smoked through a water pipe. When you draw on the pipe, the smoke passes through a water bowl, cooling it.
Effects of shisha
Shisha gets into your system faster and is more intense than a cigarette because the cooler smoke allows you to inhale more.
Your heart rate and blood pressure increase.
Regular users say it helps them concentrate, relax and makes them less anxious.
Shisha risks
The first time, you might feel sick and light-headed because you’re inhaling large amounts of nicotine, carbon monoxide and other chemicals.
During a shisha session, you inhale more of these harmful substances than you would smoking a cigarette.
Regular shisha smokers risk cancers, and heart, lung and circulatory diseases. Children are particularly vulnerable to second-hand smoke.
Sharing a hookah pipe can spread infectious diseases such as herpes, TB and hepatitis.
Shisha and the law
As with UK law on cigarettes, it’s illegal to smoke shisha in enclosed public spaces and to sell tobacco or vaping products to anyone
under 18.
