Despite a growing number of cities instituting smoking bans across the country, hookah bars are continuing to crop up everywhere and gaining a loyal customer base in young adults.

Hookahs, for those who are unfamiliar, are smoking instruments that use charcoal to heat flavored tobacco. The smoke from the heated tobacco is then sucked through a hose into the mouth.  Hookah cafés often offer a wide variety of flavorings on their menu, from mango to rose petals.  People often share hookahs in groups.

Wake Forest University researchers have found that 40.3 percent of students in North Carolina reported trying hookah at least once – just barely lower than the percentage of students who reported smoking at least one cigarette (46.6).  Moreover, 17.4 percent said they actively use hookahs.

“The popularity of hookah smoking among young adults is quite alarming given the potential for negative health effects,” said Erin Sutfin, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy and lead author on the study. “Unfortunately, many young adults are misinformed about the safety of hookah smoking and some mistakenly believe it to be safer than cigarette smoking.”

The results also indicated that freshmen and males were more likely to use hookahs, and that there was an association between individuals who used hookahs and those who smoked cigarettes, smoked marijuana, had a history of other illegal drug use and had drank alcohol in the 30 days prior to the survey.

Hookah users who participated in the study seemed to share a mistaken perception that smoking from a hookah was less harmful than smoking a cigarette.

“The smoke produced by hookahs is a very mild smoke that may be appealing to non-cigarette smokers as a starter product,” Sutfin said.

According to Sutfin, 22 percent of hookah users in the study had never tried a cigarette, suggesting that hookahs may be their first tobacco product.

“Likely because of the pleasant aroma and taste, users may inhale more deeply over a longer period of time,” she said. “This results in hookah smokers actually inhaling a larger volume of tobacco smoke than cigarette smokers do.”

The dangers associated with smoking hookah are two-fold.  First, there is a concern about the cleanliness of the hookah cafes.  Because hookahs are shared and re-used, if cafes do not clean them properly, there is a risk of spreading infectious diseases.

Second, the hookah smoke itself contains high levels of toxic compounds, including tar, carbon monoxide, heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals. Smoking from a hookah actually exposes an individual to more carbon monoxide and smoke than a cigarette, and delivers the same amount of nicotine, which can lead to dependence.

Health risks of smoking hookah include lung cancer, respiratory illness, low birth-weight (among infants whose mothers smoked hookah during pregnancy) and periodontal disease.

“This study highlights hookah smoking as a considerable public health concern, especially among young adults,” Sutfin said. “Going forward, we need to develop interventions to address this risky behavior.”

The study was published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

According to two new studies, smokers who tend to take their first cigarette soon after waking up in the morning appear to have a higher risk of developing cancer than smokers who wait until later in the day.

The finding is independent of cigarette smoking frequency and duration.

For one study, researchers looked at 4,775 lung cancer cases and 2,835 controls, all of whom were regular cigarette smokers. They found that people who smoked within an hour of waking up were 1.31 times more likely to develop lung cancer as those who waited. People who smoked within 30 minutes of waking were 1.79 times more likely to develop lung cancer.

Another study, which looked at 1,055 head and neck cancer cases and 795 controls, found that people who smoked within an hour of waking were 1.42 times more likely to develop head and neck cancer compared to those who waited. That risk increased to 1.59 times more likely if people smoked within 30 minutes of waking.

The findings suggest that the need to smoke right away may be what increases early morning smokers’ likelihood of developing cancer.

“These smokers have higher levels of nicotine and possibly other tobacco toxins in their body, and they may be more addicted than smokers who refrain from smoking for a half hour or more,” said Dr. Joshua Muscat, PhD, a professor at Penn State College of Medicine. “It may be a combination of genetic and personal factors that cause a higher dependence to nicotine.”

The study was published in the journal Cancer.

While a smoke-free home for children who have asthma is the best option, a new study shows that indoor air cleaners can significantly reduce household air pollution and reduce rates of daytime asthma symptoms.

Johns Hopkins researchers found that air cleaners could improve overall air quality in homes, and in some cases lead to a reduction in asthma symptoms that was comparable to the effect of anti-inflammatory asthma drugs. However, the researchers warned, the air cleaners did not reduce air nicotine levels and did not counter all adverse effects of secondhand smoke.

“Air cleaners appear to be an excellent partial solution to improving air quality in homes of children living with a smoker but should not be viewed as a substitute for a smoke-free environment,” says lead investigator Arlene Butz, Sc.D., an asthma specialist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

Researchers followed 115 children, who lived with at least one caregiver who smoked, over a period of 6 months. A third of the households were given two air cleaners, while another third received air cleaners plus counseling on the dangers of second hand smoke. The remaining third was only given air cleaners at the end of the study.

The researchers then measured air nicotine and air pollution levels at the start of and the end of the study, and also compared asthma symptoms and nicotine levels in children living in homes with and without air cleaners.

They found the overall air quality in homes with air cleaners showed a nearly 50-percent drop in pollution, though the air still never reached the quality of smoke-free homes. Meanwhile, levels of air nicotine and nicotine in children remained similar in all households, regardless of whether there was an air cleaner in the home or not.

Additionally, children living in homes with air cleaners experienced significantly more days without coughing, wheezing or difficulty breathing compared with children living in homes without air cleaners. Researchers estimated that children in homes with air cleaners experienced 33 more symptom-free days, on average.

Based on the study results, Butz and her colleagues recommended that parents completely ban indoor smoking and use air cleaners as a temporary tool if necessary on the way to achieving a smoke-free household.

Asthma is the most common pediatric chronic illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it affects 6.5 million children in the United States.

More than 30 percent of children in the United States live in a home with a smoker, and up to two-thirds of children in urban neighborhoods live with a least one smoker.

The study was published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

It used to be called impotence. But thanks to the proliferation of drug industry advertisements that now threaten to overwhelm our television programs, today we know it as erectile dysfunction, or, more discreetly, simply as E.D. Whatever you want to call it, though, it’s the man’s inability to achieve or maintain an erection sufficient to satisfy him or his partner during intercourse.

When it occurs in young men, it’s usually just a matter of momentary anxiety. In middle-aged men, it’s often caused by stress, guilt, or overwork. In fact, most men experience it at some point in their lives by age forty, though usually only briefly, and they are not psychologically affected by it.

But it gets more common with age, and for some men – as many as 30 million of them according to the drug companies – it occurs frequently and causes serious emotional and relationship problems.

In many cases, E.D. is due to the deterioration of the blood vessels that carry blood into the penis. A host of things can cause this deterioration, including nicotine, which narrows the blood vessels, excessive alcohol, and certain prescription drugs, notably antidepressants. Some physical problems can contribute to the deterioration, too, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity.

If you have difficulty getting an erection, get help. Discuss it with your partner, and consult your doctor, who will help you find the cause of your E.D. Treatment will, of course, depend on the cause. Though there are a number of mechanical devices that can help men get a better erection, including splints, rings, and pumps, it’s the E.D. drugs that have revolutionized the treatment of this problem. They work well for most men, and if one drug doesn’t work for you, try one of the others – but always work with a doctor’s guidance since the drugs can have significant side effects.

Forget nicotine patches and gum.  Efforts to quit smoking have officially moved into the 21^st century.

According to British researchers, smokers are twice as likely to succeed in quitting if they receive supportive text messages, USA Today reported.

The researchers followed 5,800 smokers in their attempts to quit the habit.  One group was sent motivational text messages while another group received “placebo texts” that thanked them for participating in the study.

The motivational message group received five texts a day for the first five weeks and three per week for the next 26 weeks.

A sample text message read: “TXT2STOP: think you’ll put on weight when you quit? We’re here to help – We’ll TXT weight control and exercise tips, recipes and motivation tips.”

The smokers were also able to text for help during cravings or relapses and would receive appropriate tips for dealing with their current situation.

After six months, the study participants were all tested for a substance found in cigarettes.  Those who had received the motivational texts were twice as likely to still be smoke-free.

The smokers reported the messages helped them through the quitting process, according to lead researcher Caroline Free.

“It made them feel less isolated while they tried to quit,” Free said.

For a small group of smokers, however, the texts actually became unhelpful because the messages reminded them of smoking, which emphasizes the need for individually tailored support.

Only 10.7 percent of smokers receiving motivational messages were still abstinent after six months, but this was double the rate of those who did not receive the messages.  Free suggested that increased personalization and interactivity could make the program even more effective.

The study was published in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Click here to read more from USA Today.

Nobody wakes up one morning and suddenly decides to be a smoker. Smoking is a habit picked up from others who smoke. It’s a social disease. Individuals do it in imitation of somebody they respect who smokes, like parents or teachers, or they do it because their high school or college friends smoke and they want to fit in.

But once you put a cigarette in your mouth, you are exposed (not to mention that you are exposing everyone around you, as well) to the effects of nicotine, which is one of the most highly addictive drugs available today. And the more you smoke, the greater is your urge to smoke, and the more addicted you become.

The smoking habit will wreak havoc throughout the decades of your life because once you start to smoke, its deleterious effects spiral out of control, much like credit card debt. Smoking is associated not only with all kinds of cancer, from oral cancer to cervical cancer, but also with heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States today for both men and women. Since smoking also affects the respiratory system, chronic smokers have a higher incidence of bronchitis (an inflammation of the lining of the tubes that connect the windpipe to the lungs) and emphysema (a chronic lung disease usually caused by exposure to toxic chemicals or tobacco smoke) than those who don’t smoke.

And smoking interferes with the immune system as well; that is, smokers are more prone to getting chronic diseases, flu, and viral illnesses than are nonsmokers.

Then there are the secondary effects that smoking has on others. Pregnant women who smoke have smaller-sized babies and have higher rates of premature babies. And children who are exposed to secondhand smoke have higher levels of asthma.

If you are a smoker, there may be no better thing you can do for your health than to quit smoking, and the best time to quit is as a young adult. You may have started smoking in high school or college, but now you are on your own, away from the peer pressures of your schoolmates and the influence of your parents (who may be smokers themselves), and making a new life for yourself. This is the easiest time to kick the habit.

Of course, quitting is easier said than done. As Mark Twain remarked: “Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.”

The reason it’s so difficult to quit is that it’s really a dual challenge, and you are unlikely to succeed in your quest unless you meet both challenges head-on.

The first challenge involves breaking the physical dependency that smoking causes. An absence of nicotine leads to withdrawal symptoms, including anxiety, nervousness, and an overwhelming desire for more nicotine. Very few people can go cold turkey and never pick up another cigarette again. Most people need to be gradually desensitized of their nicotine addiction.

One way to do that is with Nicorette gum or the nicotine patch. These products allow you to alter, over a course of weeks, the amount of nicotine that you ingest, until your body gets used to having no nicotine at all. Acupuncture and hypnosis have also helped people reduce or eliminate the withdrawal symptoms–irritability, depression, and lack of energy–that come from kicking the nicotine habit.

The second challenge for the smoker seeking to quit involves breaking the mental habit that smoking reinforces. The best way to do that is through the same system that got you smoking in the first place, through a peer support system. Just as in overcoming any addiction, breaking the smoking habit requires a support group, which can consist of friends, family, and/or coworkers. But you have to have somebody who is willing to be there for you, to give you the support you need when you are most likely to want to pick up another cigarette.

Quitting should be celebrated at every little step of the way because you’ll be seeing the benefits of your efforts in the minutes, days, weeks months, and years after you quit:

–Twenty minutes after you smoke your last cigarette, your heart rate drops.

–Twelve hours later, the carbon monoxide level in your bloodstream returns to normal.

–Two to three weeks after quitting, your circulation improves, and your lungs begin to function normally.

–One year after you quit, the excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker.

–In five years’ time, your risk of stroke is reduced to that of a nonsmoker.

–In ten years’ time, your risk of dying of lung cancer is about half that of a smoker.

–And in 15 years, your risk of coronary heart disease is like that of someone who never smoked.

The long and short of it is, the sooner you quit, the quicker you’ll regain your health.