Although already warned by previous studies and by medical experts about the hazards of cigarette smoking, many smokers still do not consider the idea of breaking the habit.
Instead of just reminding smokers verbally, one nurse in North Carolina, USA, Amanda Eller, chose to be graphic by showing the difference between healthy lungs and ones damaged by smoking. She documented the comparison and uploaded it on her Facebook page last April 24.
The video showed two lungs, one healthy and the other “cancerous,” as the smoker went through one pack per day for 20 years. The non-smoker’s lung showed it was pinkish in color, while the smoker’s was charred black due to smoke exposure.
The nurse showed how the two are comparable when she inflated them. She described the damaged lung as “not as impressive” as she was pumping air in and out of them. “Because these are COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) lungs, cancerous lungs,” she said. “The elastance is gone, so they’ll stretch out, then the recoil of them just snaps right back.”
Moving on to the healthy lungs, the nurse again inflated onto it and explained that when the lungs exhale, it deflates back to its original form.
So far, Eller’s post has reached virality with almost 590,000 shares, 10,000 likes and reactions.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over seven million people die due to tobacco—with more than six million deaths due to direct smoking and 890,000 others because of second-hand smoke.
In the Philippines, the number of smokers aged 15 and up declined to 15.9 million in 2015, down from 17 million back in 2009, according to the Philippines’ Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS). /ra
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