Arabs face higher risk of diabetes

According to a study by Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services in cooperation with Wayne State University -

People of Arab descent are at significantly greater risk of diabetes than the general population and use tobacco at high rates, especially among younger people, in part because of the smoking of “argila,” a traditional communal pipe.

Nationally, 18.3 percent of Arabs are diabetics, compared to about 13 percent of African-Americans, 12 percent of Latinos and 4 percent of Caucasians.

In a finding that stunned researchers, ACCESS determined that 63 percent of youths of Arab descent have smoked the “argila.”

What stuns me is how they are apparently correlating at some level argila smoking with increase in diabetes incidence.

“It is becoming an epidemic,” Hammad said. “It is culturally accepted, but the major concern among health experts is that there is a misunderstanding that somehow it is safer than smoking cigarettes. ”

Is this argila similar to hookah? I know hookah to be relatively safe because the smoke is filtered through water.

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