IS HOOKAH SAFER? OR IS THAT BELIEF JUST BLOWING SMOKE?

ARLINGTON, Texas, July 6 -- The University of Texas at Arlington issued the following news release:

Hookah is often seen as a cleaner alternative to smoking cigarettes, but researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington are launching a new study to put that assumption to the test.

Ziyad Ben Taleb, associate professor of kinesiology and director of the Nicotine and Tobacco Research Laboratory, has received a two-year, $442,763 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to investigate how waterpipe size and heating sources affect hookah smoking.

"There is a new trend of electronic heating elements that heat the tobacco without combustion," Dr. Ben Taleb said. "There are marketing claims that these are safer, but we don't know. T...