We all know that smoking is bad for us and that it can cause damage to our lungs but not many people take the threat as seriously as they should. While quitting once you’ve started is no easy feat it is one worth working towards.
A video that has been circling around online recently is really working to bring awareness to just how serious the damage smoking causes truly is. This video showing a set of lungs that have been so blackened by tar build-up that they look more like lumps of garbage than actual lungs. These lungs were initially donated by a 52-year-old man who had passed but because of how severe their condition was, they were rejected.
While in the hands of Dr. Chen these lungs brought great shock as they were so severely blackened. This is the reality of smoking for around 30 years consistently. Not only was there calcification, BLD and pulmonary emphysema were also quite present. Dr. Chen decided that he could use these lungs to make the dangers of smoking more known so since they were not suitable for any kind of transplant they still managed to find a use for them in this sense.
According to The Sun, Dr. Chen wrote on social media that there were many smokers who had lungs that looked like these and then asking the question ‘look at these lungs – do you still have the courage to smoke?’ While it might not seem like a lot is happening on the outside of your body inside your body when you smoke your lungs are going through a lot.
While in China they do accept the lungs of smokers because lungs are so needed but they do have very strict standards in regards according to Dr. Chen and these were something that would never be acceptable. Just look at how unrecognizable they truly are in the photos below.
The video posted by Dr. Chen has been viewed over 25 million times on Twitter alone and is easily one of the best examples of why we should not be putting this kind of poison in our bodies and yet people across the globe still choose to pick up that cigarette and a lighter to boot.
(Image Credit: AsianWire/Dr. Chen)
(Image Credit: AsianWire/Dr. Chen)
Even just here in the US 14 out of ever 100 people that are 18 years of age or older smoke on a regular basis and there are more than 16 million Americans living with some kind of smoking-related disease. After seeing the video below and the images above does smoking really look worth it?
While our lungs do heal to some extent once we quit smoking they still never go back to normal. You may not notice serious issues until you’ve been smoking for a very long time and to be completely honest just because you can breathe fine now doesn’t mean that when you’re older you’ll still have the same lung capacity. Take care of your body while you can.
Sources:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10367330/video-years-smoking-lungs-blackened-tar/
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm