Nurse Shares Video Comparing Smoker’s Lungs to Non-smoker’s Lungs

A nurse in North Carolina is warning of the dangers of smoking by sharing a grim illustration of just how much damage cigarettes can do.

North Carolina nurse Amanda Eller uploaded two videos to Facebook: one showing a pair of bright red, healthy lungs from a person who has never smoked a cigarette in their life, and another video of a pair belonging to a person who had smoked one pack of cigarettes every day for 20 years. "Still wanna smoke?" Eller captions the videos, posing the question to viewers to see if the vast difference in the way the two separate pairs of lungs expand when filled with air will change minds.

While it is obvious which pair of lungs belong to the smoker – one set dark and nearly charcoal in color while the other appears to be a much healthier pink – the full damage to the unhealthy lungs is only revealed when air is blown into them.

"These lungs are COPD lungs, cancerous lungs," a nurse in the background is heard saying as the smoker's lungs are manually inflated, mimicking taking a breath. "The elasticity has gone, they stretch out but the recoil of them just snaps right back because there's nothing to help hold them open."

In comparison, when the healthy lungs are inflated, they deflate much more slowly, the elasticity of them still healthy and intact.

While it is no secret that smoking has devastating effects on the body, the videos serve as a visual representation of that damage.

Worldwide, tobacco use is the cause of nearly 6 million deaths per year, with 480,000 of those annual deaths occurring in the Unites States. Of those 480,000 deaths, more than 41,000 of those deaths are the result of secondhand smoke exposure, the CDC reports. On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers.

For every one person who dies due to smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The real danger of smoking comes from the more than 7,000 chemicals contained in tobacco smoke, at least 70 of which experts say are known to cause cancer. Among the most dangerous chemicals are tar, which cover the fine hairs that sweep mucus and germs in the lungs, clogging them and making it difficult to breathe. Benzene, another known chemical in tobacco smoke, used to be added to petrol and has been linked to leukemia and kidney cancers.

However, quitting smoking can greatly reduce the risk of smoking-related diseases, with the risk of developing cancers, heart disease, stroke, and other illnesses decreasing among stopping.