Inflammation is the immune system's coordinated response to injury, infection, or perceived threat. It involves cellular recruitment, cytokine signaling, and tissue remodeling.
Mechanism: Acute inflammation (hours to days) is essential for healing. Chronic low-grade inflammation (years to decades) underlies cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, neurodegeneration, and most cancers. The term 'inflammaging' captures it.
Use case: Acute: don't blunt the first 48 hours of an injury. Chronic: track hs-CRP, ferritin, ESR. Drive it down via sleep, exercise, diet, stress modulation, sometimes pharmacology (low-dose aspirin in select populations, statins).
Caveats: 'Anti-inflammatory diet' is a marketing term. The specifics matter: omega-3:6 ratio, polyphenol intake, ultra-processed food load, alcohol.