Not long ago, the "pneumonia" and "white lung" were still frightening, and the lung, an organ that is used to working silently, appeared in the center of our vision for the first time, and everyone was anxious to get a pair of good lungs.
Fortunately, the effects of the new coronavirus on the lungs are relatively non-durable, and even in the case of those infected with pneumonia, most of the lungs are not destroyed for life.
Compared to viruses, the various tobacco products around us are the ones that slowly damage the lungs one step at a time.
Today we will not list the numbers of smoking hazards, but follow the various examination lenses, deep inside the body, to see what smoking has done to the lungs.
The following part of the picture is too real, may cause discomfort, please read with caution.
A healthy lung looks like this
Healthy lungs are usually light red, though hidden inside the body and not often seen in their true form.
To look inside the lungs, two main types of examination are used.
One is a tracheoscope (commonly known as a pneumoscope) that looks directly into the lungs: we can see all levels of the airways inside the lungs, with their surfaces covered with tiny blood vessels.
One type of lung CT, which uses X-ray imaging to look at the lungs on a larger scale, can detect inflammation, abnormal tissue (e.g., lung cancer, nodules), etc.
Smoking, first affecting invisible lung cilia
In people who have just started smoking, no changes in the lungs that are visible on examination occur. Tobacco smoke damages mainly the cilia, the microscopic structures of the bronchi.
Normal airways have a large number of cilia in their walls, which oscillate regularly to expel inhaled dust and pathogens. Tobacco smoke makes the cilia lazy and short, and the oscillation is no longer strong enough to complete the cleaning in time.
Early changes are less obvious, however, and the cilia begin to work hard overtime when the smoker is asleep and not smoking. Smokers will also cough a few times in the morning to "clear their lungs" and cough up the particles that have accumulated during the cilia's nightly oscillations.
In the early days of smoking, cilia movement alternates between laziness and diligence, with laziness when the smoke comes and diligence when the smoke goes.
The good news is that if you quit smoking at this time, all the damage to the cilia can be restored and the lungs can be restored to their original state.
Slowly, smoking blackens the lungs
If you continue to smoke, another significant change begins to appear.
Remember the light red color of a young person's healthy lungs? People don't breathe pure air, and there are always dark impurities that enter the lungs with the breath. These dark impurities are consumed by macrophages and stored in the vesicles of macrophages as toxic waste.
The more impurities that accumulate, the darker the macrophages look, giving the lungs an increasingly distinct dark appearance.
As you get older, the color of your lungs will gradually turn gray and black. The tiny carbon-based particles from incomplete combustion during smoking can greatly accelerate this change.
Many smokers are frightened by this black lung to begin to quit smoking, the contrast is indeed very strong.
However, the black color is only a cosmetic change and is not unique to smokers; some special types of work are more likely to appear because of breathing air pollution. The blackness alone has not been found to be directly related to reduced lung function or lung disease.
For those who continue to smoke, what lies beneath the black lung changes are other real irreversible lung injuries.
Continuing to smoke leads to irreversible slow lung obstruction
An exhalation relies primarily on the expansion and contraction of the alveoli, and it is the critical alveolar structures of the lung that are ultimately destroyed by long-term smoking.
Smoke causes small airway obstructions that affect gas flow, and residual gas buildup makes the alveoli thin and inelastic, making it difficult for the lungs to breathe normally despite their size. This is the basic pathological change of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
At this point, opening the chest cavity for direct observation reveals hyperinflation of the lungs and decreased elasticity. The appearance is grayish (or possibly blackened by smoking at the same time), and multiple large blisters of varying sizes are visible on the surface.
There's a worse kind of lung cancer waiting for smokers
If chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the eventual result of long-term smoking, there is another group of smokers who will suffer another lung trauma much sooner - lung cancer.
Smoke stimulation induces genetic changes and long-term inflammation that make smokers much more likely to develop lung cancer. Malignant tumors may grow locally while the lungs are still functioning approximately normally.
When viewed on CT, lung cancer looks like this.
If it's not intuitive to look at it this way, the tracheoscope can see things like
At this point, subsequent treatment will become a heavy burden.
In addition, besides directly harming the smoker's lungs, secondhand smoke has a more pronounced effect on the lung function of others, especially children, and asthma and lung dysplasia can be caused by secondhand smoke.
If there is no smoking, the lung cilia work diligently to clean the waste all the time.
If there was no smoking, there would be less bronchial asthma in children.
That without smoking, the lungs might stay red for a long time.
Without smoking, the alveoli would have had good elasticity to breathe smoothly all their lives
Without smoking, lung cancer would be a rare cancer.
If you are shocked by these lung damage changes on camera, then put down the cigarette in your hand and also forward it to your loved ones to make them quit smoking from today as well.
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