The Truth About That Scary Video That Shows What Smoking Does to Your Lungs

The Truth About That Scary Video That Shows What Smoking Does to Your Lungs

Smoking's clearly terrible, but is this really an accurate depiction?

The internet's buzzing about a Vine purported to show the difference in lung function between a smoker and non-smoker. Everyone's heard how awful smoking is for your body, but this new video, which was originally posted to Vine by Devon Arbelo and appears to be part of a school experiment, takes anti-smoking messages to a whole other level.

While this shocking visual is a pretty convincing argument against picking up the cigs, it isn't totally accurate, says Nicholas Vander Els, M.D., Director of the Pulmonary Function Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

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First, even though smoking irrefutably damages lungs, the unhealthy lung used in the video is slightly misleading. "It isn't a typical smoker's lung," says Vander Els. "That mass on the left looks like it could be a tumor or scarring from severe infection. It could be smoking-related, but it isn't just a regular smoker's lung." Besides that, the lungs could be coming from different-sized people, so there's a chance the smoker's lung would never have been able to get as big as the healthy person's in the first place. "One might have been from a man who's six feet as opposed to the other being from someone who's five feet," says Vander Els.

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Another flaw in the video is that it's focusing on the least telling aspect of lung function. "This is showing lungs when air is being pumped in, but the key difference between the lungs of an actual smoker and non-smoker is when the air goes out," says Vander Els. That's due to emphysema, a condition that affects most smokers. Emphysema is the breakdown of the connective tissue in the lungs, making them unable to process oxygen and carbon dioxide as efficiently. "When a smoker has emphysema, their lungs actually get bigger and empty more slowly because they trap the air," says Vander Els. Since they can't release the air very well, a key sign of damage is really the lungs' inability to deflate fully rather than their inability to inflate all the way.

Although the video isn't completely correct in its portrayal of a smoker's lung vs. that of a non-smoker, it's still sending the right message: Smoking damages your body in so many ways, whether you have a social puff here and there or are going through a pack a day. Here are five ways to quit if you're hooked.

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