The Effect of Waterpipe Smoking on DNA Integrity Among Youth in Jordan

Abstract

Waterpipes have been used to smoke tobacco and other substances by the indigenous people of Africa and Asia for at least four centuries. Waterpipe smoking causes different genotoxic effects. The evaluation of chromosome aberrations (CAs) is one of the standard methods used for assessing the DNA damage in human subjects. The aim of this study was to determine whether waterpipe smoking increases the frequency of different types of CAs in the peripheral blood lymphocytes of young waterpipe smokers ( $$n=25$$ ) compared with non-smokers ( $$n=25$$ ) in Jordan. Twenty-five metaphases were scored and evaluated for chromosome breakage, fragment and gap for each individual. Chromosomal breakage ratios were detected to be $$2.53\pm 1$$ and $$0.576\pm 0.64$$ in the waterpipe smokers and non-smokers groups, respectively. The fragments ratios were $$2.19\pm 0.9$$ and $$0.72 \pm 0.05$$ , and the gaps ratios were $$2.15\pm 0.67$$ and $$0.6\pm 0.5$$ in the waterpipe smokers and non-smokers groups ( $$p <0.0001$$ ), respectively. The results of the study revealed a significant increase in the frequencies of different types of CAs in waterpipe smokers compered to non-smokers, suggesting that smoking a waterpipe may cause genotoxic effects.