Surgeons Show What The Human Lungs Look Like After 30 Years Of Smoking & It’s Shocking
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According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. It accounts for almost half a million deaths each year, meaning that 1 in 5 deaths occurs because of smoking and its damage to the human body. Nevertheless, thousands of people continue to smoke despite the health hazards and numerous prevention programs.
People who smoke are twice as likely to have a heart attack and 30 times more likely to suffer from lung cancer, compared to non-smokers. However, anyone who has battled an addiction knows just how damn hard it is to quit. Well, hopefully, this imagery will make you reevaluate your lifestyle choices, all you smokers out there.
More info: CDC
A shocking video shows the charcoaled lungs of a person who smoked for 30 years
Image credits: Chen Jingyu
For comparison, healthy lungs should have a pink color, whereas these lungs seem extremely inflamed from years of tobacco residue clogging them up. The lungs belonged to a 52-year-old man who died because of multiple lung diseases. The video was captured by the surgeons and later posted with a caption ‘Do you still have the courage to smoke?’ The patient had signed up to donate his organs after death, but unfortunately, hospital staff quickly realized that they won’t be able to use them.
The man wanted to donate his organs, however, medics quickly realized that it won’t be possible
Image credits: Chen Jingyu
Dr. Chen, a lung transplant surgeon who led the operation, told the media: “The patient didn’t undergo a CT scan before his death. He was declared brain dead, and his lungs were donated shortly after that. Initial oxygenation index tests were okay, but when we harvested the organs, we realized we wouldn’t be able to use them.”
“Look at these lungs – do you still have the courage to smoke?”
Image credits: Chen Jingyu
“We Chinese love smoking. It would be impractical to say that we wouldn’t accept the lungs of all smokers, but there are strict standards. [We would accept] lungs from people under 60 years of age who have only recently died, minor infections in the lungs and relatively clean X-rays are also acceptable. If the above conditions are met, we would consider transplanting the lungs,” the surgeon added.
Here’s what people online had to say
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I'm so glad I quit smoking in 2005. One of the best things I ever did. OK, my lungs may never be 100% ever again, but at least they never will be as bad as what is shown here.
I've heard it takes the lungs about seven years to clear up all the smoke residue when you stop smokinh. So your lungs probably look quite good these days!
IDK if its 7 years, but if you stop smoking, u gud
Good news, in 2025 they say your risks of smoking-related death will be about the same as someone who never smoked! Your risk of heart disease will be the same as a person who never smoked next year. You’ve earned it! https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317956.php#timeline
I've been smoking 15 years, found out this year I now have copd. Obviously quit (blimming hard). My Dr told me some ppl are genetically more at risk of lung disease if they have certain genes. But even quitting can't undo copd, and it only took 15 years smoking
I quit in June, after 25 years. I still want one, but I'm stubborn enough to keep going!
Keep up the effort! It's hard, so hard. I smoked for 55 years and my lungs will never recover within my life span. Besides that I have COPD and lung cancer. Hard to say which one will kill me, but one of them will...and yes I still want a cigarette some days.
Is this the picture they never posted on the back of a cigarette pack? Apparently not, because plenty of people still smoke. Maybe, if nothing else, they should put it on a billboard, like they used to do with Joe Camel. Haven't seen him in a while, thought … he must have died of lung cancer.
Every smoker quits every time they finish smoking a cigarette. It really isn't about quitting at all. It is about not ever smoking the next one. The cravings you get will, over time, be easier and easier to ignore and they will come at much larger intervals. Congratulations!
I will go to my grave wondering why people are so enamored with the process of taking what is essentially inhaling the burning fumes from a poisonous weed. We need new medical technologies to help smokers quit and further restrictions on the sale of cigarrettes.
Because it produces a chemical reaction in your brain. Duh. And it's an addictive substance on top of that.
Yeah, C V, I think his question, DUH, is why anyone would start smoking, knowing all the dangers associated with it. So maybe a little less of the snark next time, eh?
My dad used to smoke, probably since his teens. At the peak of his habit, he was smoking 2 packs a day. As a teen, I was in the car with him, and he stopped at the gas station but didn't pull up to the pump. I told him, "You don't have to do it (get a pack)." He paused for 2 seconds, gave a sigh of frustration, and exited the car to get a pack. Nicotine is a powerfully addictive drug that hi-jacks your pleasure-seeking brain circuitry. Willpower is not enough to overcome that habit. That much, I can understand by what I saw in my dad.
By the way, my dad is real smart dude. He's a Chem. Eng., taught himself computers so that he could modernize his department engineering paints, inks, and coatings, and learned ballroom dance up to the gold division, winning numerous first places in competition. It took a common respiratory viral infection to get him to quit. According to him, smoking was nauseating when he had the virus.
My grandfather, also a smart and successful man, went cold turkey after his first TIA. He loved the way smoking made him feel in addition to the addictiveness, so he was at least 2 packs a day for a couple decades. While he had heart issues for the last half of his life, he was fairly vigorous and active into his 70s and lived to be 90. We lost him last spring, 3 weeks before I got married. I am glad he at least got to see one of his grandkids in a longterm committed relationship with a person who is good to them, even if he didn’t live to see my wedding. (A cousin married 8 years before that because she and her parents wanted him to see one of his grandkids marry, but they’d only been together 6 months and the marriage broke down within 2 months. They married on Halloween and were permanently separated before Christmas, with the annulment coming not long into the new year. They didn’t really know each other and were very, very young)
Yes. And I get they're addicted to nicotine, but nicotine patches and gum exist. Yes the nicotine is still bad but it's SO MANY times better than getting a literal layer of tar inside your organs.
The big tobacco companies have a lot to answer for. "Tobacco is the only consumer product that kills when used exactly as the manufacturer intends. It does so at an alarming rate – one in two long-term users will eventually be killed by their habit." https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/dec/01/big-tobacco-industry-targets-young-people-poor-countries-smoking
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/10/21/769064973/which-countries-do-best-and-worst-at-keeping-big-tobacco-out-of-politics
I'm so glad I quit smoking in 2005. One of the best things I ever did. OK, my lungs may never be 100% ever again, but at least they never will be as bad as what is shown here.
I've heard it takes the lungs about seven years to clear up all the smoke residue when you stop smokinh. So your lungs probably look quite good these days!
IDK if its 7 years, but if you stop smoking, u gud
Good news, in 2025 they say your risks of smoking-related death will be about the same as someone who never smoked! Your risk of heart disease will be the same as a person who never smoked next year. You’ve earned it! https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317956.php#timeline
I've been smoking 15 years, found out this year I now have copd. Obviously quit (blimming hard). My Dr told me some ppl are genetically more at risk of lung disease if they have certain genes. But even quitting can't undo copd, and it only took 15 years smoking
I quit in June, after 25 years. I still want one, but I'm stubborn enough to keep going!
Keep up the effort! It's hard, so hard. I smoked for 55 years and my lungs will never recover within my life span. Besides that I have COPD and lung cancer. Hard to say which one will kill me, but one of them will...and yes I still want a cigarette some days.
Is this the picture they never posted on the back of a cigarette pack? Apparently not, because plenty of people still smoke. Maybe, if nothing else, they should put it on a billboard, like they used to do with Joe Camel. Haven't seen him in a while, thought … he must have died of lung cancer.
Every smoker quits every time they finish smoking a cigarette. It really isn't about quitting at all. It is about not ever smoking the next one. The cravings you get will, over time, be easier and easier to ignore and they will come at much larger intervals. Congratulations!
I will go to my grave wondering why people are so enamored with the process of taking what is essentially inhaling the burning fumes from a poisonous weed. We need new medical technologies to help smokers quit and further restrictions on the sale of cigarrettes.
Because it produces a chemical reaction in your brain. Duh. And it's an addictive substance on top of that.
Yeah, C V, I think his question, DUH, is why anyone would start smoking, knowing all the dangers associated with it. So maybe a little less of the snark next time, eh?
My dad used to smoke, probably since his teens. At the peak of his habit, he was smoking 2 packs a day. As a teen, I was in the car with him, and he stopped at the gas station but didn't pull up to the pump. I told him, "You don't have to do it (get a pack)." He paused for 2 seconds, gave a sigh of frustration, and exited the car to get a pack. Nicotine is a powerfully addictive drug that hi-jacks your pleasure-seeking brain circuitry. Willpower is not enough to overcome that habit. That much, I can understand by what I saw in my dad.
By the way, my dad is real smart dude. He's a Chem. Eng., taught himself computers so that he could modernize his department engineering paints, inks, and coatings, and learned ballroom dance up to the gold division, winning numerous first places in competition. It took a common respiratory viral infection to get him to quit. According to him, smoking was nauseating when he had the virus.
My grandfather, also a smart and successful man, went cold turkey after his first TIA. He loved the way smoking made him feel in addition to the addictiveness, so he was at least 2 packs a day for a couple decades. While he had heart issues for the last half of his life, he was fairly vigorous and active into his 70s and lived to be 90. We lost him last spring, 3 weeks before I got married. I am glad he at least got to see one of his grandkids in a longterm committed relationship with a person who is good to them, even if he didn’t live to see my wedding. (A cousin married 8 years before that because she and her parents wanted him to see one of his grandkids marry, but they’d only been together 6 months and the marriage broke down within 2 months. They married on Halloween and were permanently separated before Christmas, with the annulment coming not long into the new year. They didn’t really know each other and were very, very young)
Yes. And I get they're addicted to nicotine, but nicotine patches and gum exist. Yes the nicotine is still bad but it's SO MANY times better than getting a literal layer of tar inside your organs.
The big tobacco companies have a lot to answer for. "Tobacco is the only consumer product that kills when used exactly as the manufacturer intends. It does so at an alarming rate – one in two long-term users will eventually be killed by their habit." https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/dec/01/big-tobacco-industry-targets-young-people-poor-countries-smoking
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/10/21/769064973/which-countries-do-best-and-worst-at-keeping-big-tobacco-out-of-politics