Watch: Gross video reveals what smoking REALLY does to the lungs - and why cigarettes make you so out of breath
We all know that smoking is bad for our health and significantly raises the risk of fatal diseases.
But this gruesome video reveals just how much damage smoking does to the lungs in particular.
Uploaded to Vine by Devon Arbelo, it shows the extent to which tobacco affects lung capacity and turns the vital organs black.
Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals, including more than 70 cancer-causing chemicals and hundreds of other poisons.
The habit is the biggest cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – an umbrella term for a range of conditions including emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
It causes damage to the airways and lungs which leads to the development of this long-term condition. Smoking can also make symptoms worse for people with asthma and other lung conditions.
However people who stop smoking by the age of 40 can gain 10 years of extra life, research has found.
A study of 1.3million women found that quitting before middle age avoids more than 90 per cent of the increased risk of dying caused by continuing to smoke. The benefits also apply to men, said scientists.
And last year German researchers found that even life-long smokers who gave up smoking later still experienced a massive 40 per cent reduction in the risk of heart attack and stroke within just five years.
The study followed nearly 9,000 German people aged between 50 and 74 years for ten years.
The images, uploaded to Vine, show the lungs of a smoker - blackened and with reduced capacity - and a healthy set of a non-smoker
Even those who were well into old age were able to reverse some of the damage they had inflicted on their body.
And earlier this year a gruesome video emerged of the damage caused to lungs after just 60 cigarettes.
Ryan Au, a teacher at Yan Chai Hospital Tung Chi Ying Memorial School, in Hong Kong, made a gruesome the clip after becoming concerned about the number of secondary school students taking up the habit.
It is obvious to even the naked eye that the lungs exposed to cigarette smoke become seriously discoloured.
Indeed, while the non-smoking lungs remain a healthy pink colour, the smoking ones take on a yellowish-brown hue.
In the film, Mr Au also dissects the pigs’ windpipes and reveals that the non-smoking lungs have a healthy, pale pink trachea while the smoking lungs’ windpipe is clogged and stained a dark shade of brown.
Earlier this year another video revealed what smoking just 60 cigarettes can do to the lungs. Image shows a set of healthy lungs (left) and (right) a pair of lungs that have smoked that amount
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