Waterpipe tobacco smoking may potentiate risk of fungal and bacterial infections

Abstract

Background: Hookah, as a popular practice among adults, was first introduced by the Asian countries; however, it is now increasing worldwide. Although several clinical or experimental studies on waterpipe (WP) tobacco smoking highlights that this addictive behavior causes some devastating diseases such as lung cancer and respiratory diseases, further investigations on health effects of a WP tobacco smoking are still required as a serious attention. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the possible infectious agents in Iranian hookahs. Materials and Methods: Fifty water samples were taken from the hoses and water jars of the hookahs and cultured on Blood agar, MacConkey agar and Sabouraud agar mediums. Mycobacterial culture has been done on Lowenstein–Jensen medium and direct smear examination for mycobacterium were performed for all of the fifty samples. Results: The findings of this study show that 4 gram-negative bacterial species including Pseudomonas aeruginosa , Klebsiella spp , Escherichia coli , and Enterobacter and 3 gram-positive bacteria strains including Choagulase Neg. Staph , Strep viridians and Micrococcus were detected. Yeast-fungi like Candida , and Mycelial-fungi including Fusarium and Aspergillous Sp were also determined by fungal cultures on Sabouraud agar plates. The results of mycobacterial microscopic examinations and culture were all negative. Conclusions: Our results indicated to infectious potential in water of WP. Thus, simply believing of people for safety of WP than cigarettes could be considered as a wrong idea and should be taking care in human health. Keywords: waterpipe tobacco smoking, conventional TB culture, conventional fungal and microbiological culture.