Shisha guidance for GPs: eliciting the hidden history

摘要

Waterpipe tobacco smoking (or ‘shisha’) is a 600-year old practice, commonly known as hookah, nargile, and hubble-bubble. It is a growing health concern of global significance, and published literature already points to an association with lung cancer, chronic lung disease, reduced birth weight, and oral disease.1 Although traditionally perceived as being prevalent only in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, shisha is now endemic to much of the globe, including the metropolitan cities of the UK, where an estimated 8% of Birmingham university students are regular shisha smokers.