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University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers revealed that hookah is more harmful than cigarette smoking as it exposes you to more tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide than the cigarette. "Our results show that hookah tobacco smoking poses real health concerns and that it should be monitored more closely than it is currently," said lead author Brian A. Primack, M.D., Ph.D., assistant vice chancellor for health and society in Pitt's Schools of the Health Sciences, reported CBS Philly.

According to the researchers, it is a very complex comparison to compare hookah smoking with a single cigarette smoking because of the difference in the smoking patterns. They said that a hookah smoker may only indulge in a few sessions while a cigarette smoker may smoke up to 20 cigarettes a day. Dr. Primack says, "It's not a perfect comparison because people smoke cigarettes and hookahs in very different ways. We had to conduct the analysis this way-comparing a single hookah session to a single cigarette-because that's the way the underlying studies tend to report findings. So, the estimates we found cannot tell us exactly what is 'worse.' But what they do suggest is that hookah smokers are exposed to a lot more toxicants than they probably realize. After we have more fine-grained data about usage frequencies and patterns, we will be able to combine those data with these findings and get a better sense of relative overall toxicant load," reports News Max

Last year, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the teenagers indulge in hookahs more than the cigarettes. The other more commonly used product shared by teenagers was electronic cigarettes. The researchers say that the objective of the study to dispel the belief that hookah is a safer alternative, says AJC.com