4. Conclusion
This manuscript highlighted significant progress our group has
made in studies of alternative tobacco products. It was found that the
smoke from Shisha steam stones and hookah charcoals carried varying
levels of Cr, Ni, Cu, As, Cd, and Pb. Our results established that the bulk
of the toxic metals originate from the charcoal source used to vaporize
the flavored coatings on the steam stones. Limiting our discussion to
As and Cr, it was found that users of Mya or Shiazo stones would be exposed
to statistically similar amounts of these metals regardless of the
two charcoal brands used. However, it was found that these levels