If you’re a smoker, or you know a smoker, this frightening video may very well be the thing to put you, or them, off lighting up ever again.
A video, uploaded by US nurse Amanda Eller with the caption “Still wanna smoke?”, showing the horrific effects smoking has on the lungs has gone viral on social media.
The video outlines the difference between cancer-riddled lungs and healthy lungs, and the effect smoking cigarettes has on a person’s ability to breathe. Watch the video above.
In the video, pink, healthy lungs rest on a table next to black, cancerous lungs that have been damaged by smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years. The dramatic difference in the appearance of the lungs is enough to send a powerful message about the risks of smoking. However, the video continues to show an expert using an apparatus to inflate each of the lungs as if they were filling with air from breathing.
While the healthy lungs inflate and deflate without issue, the expert demonstrates how quickly the diseased lungs deflate.
Left: The cancerous lungs are inflated to full capacity. Right: The healthy lungs are inflated. Image Facebook/Amanda Eller
“Because these lungs are COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], cancerous lungs, the elastance is gone, so they will stretch out but then the recoil of them just snaps right back,” the expert explains in the video.
Put simply, the diseased lung’s ability to expand or retract has been impacted and therefore the person may experience shortness of breath.
In the video, a PEP valve is then attached to the black lungs, which slightly improves its capacity to inflate. A PEP valve is used on patients suffering from cystic fibrosis to help open up the airways.
When attached to the healthy lungs, the PEP valve allows them to fully inflate, and also slows the rate of deflation.
In just a week, the video uploaded to social media has been shared more than 450,000 times.
Currently, 3 million Australians continue to smoke cigarettes daily, despite it killing 19,000 people every year, that’s one Australian every 30 minutes.
The Cancer Council’s website states smoking 10 cigarettes a day doubles your risk of dying, and smoking more than 25 a day increases your risk of dying four-fold compared to those who have never smoked.
For more information on smoking and prevention visit the Cancer Council website here.
