The authors' objectives were to contribute to the studies on hookah
smoking to determine whether a less harmful smoking alternative exists,
at least for toxic trace metals. Hookah alternatives, such as tea
leaves, have been studied by Hammal et al. [14] and Shihadeh et al.
[23] but analytical research on steam stones as a tobacco replacement
was, to our knowledge, non-existent [2,39]. Although a handful of
new steam stone brands have come out on the market since this study
began, we focused on Mya and Shiazo. This work examined trace elements,
specifically those that were classified by the IARC (International
Agency for Research on Cancer) as Class 1 carcinogens. The metals present
in the non-smoked product, including those that coat the stones and
were contained in the flavor formulation, underwent a hot water extraction.
The second phase was to analyze the metals that a smoker
could potentially inhale during a 30 min simulated smoking session.
The hot water extraction and smoking procedure used were similar to
the procedures in Saadawi et al.