Eli5:why is an ex-smoker still at risk of having a stroke/heart attack if your blood pressure and bpm stabilizes after a couple days of non-smoking?
In: Biology
Think of your body like a concrete wall holding back water. Everytime you smoke, it’s like someone hitting that wall with a sledge hammer. Every drag makes the hammer hit multiple times. Every hit makes a mark, a little bit of damage done. After you are done, the marks and damage remain. The longer and more intense you smoke, the more damage is done.
Now let’s say, after hitting that wall for the last time, a repairman is called. But he’s slow and inefficient because he has a bunch of other tasks to do. So he can only fix one hammer mark a day. It takes a very long time for him to repair all the damage done. At the same time working against him are the other factors we deal with in life – aging, stress, eating habits, sleep quality, environmental factors, etc. they too are slowing down the repairman, causing more damage and pushing on the wall from the other side.
How long can the repair man maintain an equilibrium of damage done vs damage repaired each day, let alone get a head of the damage, before the damage outpaces the repairs and the wall collapses?
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