US Cancer Institute Awards $2.8-million Grant for Study on Nargileh Smoking

Professor Alan Shihadeh

A joint American University of Beirut-Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) team has been awarded a $2.8 million research grant from the US National Cancer Institute to study human exposure to toxicants that result from nargileh (water pipe) smoking.

Led by Professors Alan Shihadeh at AUB and Thomas Eissenberg at VCU, the team will conduct a multidisciplinary study 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 cafes to examine 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, a professor of mechanical engineering.

Instrument development and analytical laboratory work will be carried out at AUB by Shihadeh, 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 Eissenberg, Michael Weaver, and Kirk Brown.

Globally, tobacco use accounts for 4.9 million deaths each year. While extensive research has been conducted on cigarette smoking, little is known about nargileh or water pipe smoking, the use of which has spread rapidly worldwide and thus constitutes a major part of the tobacco use epidemic.