It's not moldy cheese, it's the smoker's lungs

When I was young, I especially liked to visit the Beijing Museum of Natural History. I liked the huge dinosaur bones, butterfly specimens of various colors, and all kinds of strange marine creatures... It can be said that the Beijing Museum of Natural History has covered all my childhood expectations for natural history. One year, the Museum of Natural History opened a new exhibition: "The Human Body is Amazing". In this exhibition, I saw many precious human specimens, such as the human nervous system, heart specimens, fetuses of different time periods, etc. What shocked me most was some diseased human organs, one of which was the lungs of a long-term smoker.

Model of a smoker's and a healthy lung | Alfonso Lucifredi / Wikimedia Commons

This exhibit had a great impact on my young mind, and even today when I eat braised pork, I always tell the waiter, "No lungs!"

Normal lungs are bright red in color because they have a large number of blood vessels. However, long-term smokers will have black plaques in their lungs. The number and size of these plaques will gradually increase with the length of smoking. When a certain number of years is reached, the entire lung tissue will turn black... Please be careful when viewing the pictures.

All harm and no benefit

My father is a heavy smoker. He is over 60 years old, but he is still healthy. He rarely has headaches or fever. But in mid-June 2019, he suddenly became hoarse and went to the hospital for a check-up. At first, no problem was found. Later, a chest CT scan was done, and a very large aortic hemangioma was found... After seeing the diagnosis, he was so scared that his face changed and he hardly spoke for several days.

Anti-smoking advertisement in Vietnam | ChrisGoldNY / Flickr

Fortunately, I know a doctor from a famous cardiac surgery hospital in China. When I showed the film to the doctor, the first question he asked was: "The old man must have smoked for more than 30 years, right?" "It must be 50 years, my father said he started smoking when he was a teenager..." The operation used two of the longest artificial blood vessels and several stents, and lasted from 7am to 4pm. Fortunately, it was very successful.

Sadly, when everyone in the family was relieved, the old man's lung function was very poor due to years of smoking, which made it difficult to cough up phlegm, which led to lung infection, and then he was admitted to the ICU, where he stayed for more than 3 months. After he was discharged from the hospital, I calculated that the money spent on medical treatment alone was enough for me to buy a Maybach... If I add the money I spent on cigarettes for 50 years, I might be able to buy a Rolls-Royce.

Smoking is extremely harmful to lung health | Alexey Hulsov / Pixabay

From my father's example, we can see that smoking not only damages the lungs, but also other organs of the body. For example, the chances of long-term smokers suffering from oral cancer, pharyngeal cancer, laryngeal cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer and other cancers are several times or even hundreds of times higher than those of non-smokers. The chances of diabetes, cataracts, stroke, hemangioma and other diseases are also doubled. Smoking is really harmful and has no benefits.

The history of human smoking

When did people start smoking? Archaeological evidence shows that the Mayans began using tobacco about 1,500 years ago. Initially, they may have used tobacco's ability to excite people, and used corn leaves to wrap tobacco leaves and light them up during sacrifices. By the time Columbus discovered America, most of the indigenous people had learned the skill of smoking. In addition, the indigenous people believed that smoking could expel moisture from the body, which was very attractive to sailors who lived on the sea all year round, and the excitement brought by smoking could also relieve the boredom of monotonous sailing life.

Mayan priest smoking | Wikimedia Commons

Next, tobacco was brought to Europe along with countless rare treasures from the New World, and was accepted by people living in Europe and gradually spread around the world. In the 19th century, a soldier, who had no pipe to smoke, was inspired by the paper bag of rifle powder and put tobacco leaves into paper bags. As a result, the cigarettes made in this way were easy to carry and easy to use, and they were quickly promoted. This was the first cigarette. Later, people tried to add spices such as menthol to the tobacco to change the taste of cigarettes, and gradually formed the current cigarettes.

Europeans smoking cigarettes in the 17th century | Wikimedia Commons

Everyone knows that smoking is harmful to health, but why do so many people still "can't stop"? This has to do with a chemical substance unique to tobacco: nicotine. This starts with our brain. When we feel pain, the brain will secrete a substance called endorphin, which can make brain cells release dopamine, making us feel excited and relieve pain.

Tobacco plantations in Cuba | Kotoviski / Wikimedia Commons

Nicotine can replace endorphins and prompt brain cells to release dopamine, which is also the source of the "excitement" caused by smoking. However, this external "stimulant" cannot control the amount produced like the body's own "stimulants", and there will be "overdose". Once the body adapts to this excitement, it becomes "addictive", thus creating a sense of dependence. The same is true for the excitement caused by drugs such as marijuana and opium.

Trash can inspired by smokers' lungs | Sistak / Wikimedia Commons

Not only smokers are harmed, the smoke they exhale will also affect people around them through "second-hand smoke", and the impact of second-hand smoke on children, women and other groups is often more serious, which makes smoking different from drinking, because smoking does not only affect you. May 31 this year is the 34th World No Tobacco Day. I hope all smokers around the world can put down their cigarettes to protect the health of yourself and those around you.