The video that will put you off smoking forever
WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT.
A disturbing video showing the devastating and detrimental effects of smoking on the lungs has gone viral on social media.
The video, uploaded by US nurse Amanda Eller, demonstrates the difference between cancerous lungs and healthy lungs, and the effect smoking has on your ability to breathe.
One pair of lungs is healthy and pink, while the other is black and cancer-ridden from smoking a pack of cigarettes per day for 20 years.
While the drastic visual differences are shocking enough, the video went on to demonstrate how a person’s breathing can be affected by smoking.
Using an apparatus to inflate the lungs, the nurse demonstrates how quickly the diseased lungs deflate.
“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 nurse explains in the video.
Elastance is the ability of a hollow organ to recoil to its original form after being inflated.
If the lung’s ability to expand or retract is impacted, a person can experience shortness of breath.
In the video, the nurse then attaches a PEP valve to the black lungs, which slightly improves its capacity to inflate. A PEP valve is used commonly with 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.
When uploading the video to Facebook, Ms Eller wrote in the caption: “Still wanna smoke?”
The video has been shared more than 450,000 times in the space of a week.
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In 2013, nearly 13 per cent of Australians above the age of 14 smoked daily, according to the Cancer Council.
Around 20 per cent of cancer-related deaths are also caused by smoking. Current smokers are estimated to die an average of 10 years earlier than non-smokers.
The Cancer Council’s website states that smoking 10 cigarettes per day doubles your risk of dying, and smoking more than 25 per day increases your risk of dying four-fold compared to those who have never smoked.
