[set fair (OP)]

Foods which reduce inflamation is a hot topic among snake oil salesmun nutritionists at the moment. I presume inflamation serves a purpose, but I don't know what that purpose is. My guess is that it mitigates damage, so It's not a bad bet to avoid a food which causes inflamation because such food presumeably causes damage which leads to inflamation. But the converse presumption doesn't seem likely - ie the idea that foods which reduce inflamation do so because they prevent damage. In fact some nutritionists claim that they reduce inflamation by surpressing proinflamatory cortisol; that could welll be a bad thing if inflamation is part of a healing process.

So back to the question, what purpose does inflamation serve and when is it a good thing to reduce it? And when is it a good idea to let it do its thing?

[paul cotter]

I buy diesel oil, lubricating oil and cooking oil at various times but I avoid the snake oil . I think a food may be pro-inflammatory only if one has an allergy to it. Cortisol is not pro-inflammatory, it actually reduces inflammation by damping down the immune response to whatever tissue insult initiated the process. Inflammation is triggered by chemotaxis, drawing leucocytes and macrophages to a site where injury or infection has occurred and these are then followed by b and t lymphocytes. These processes are necessary to protect us and if they fail the consequences are dire. On the other hand inflammation can get out of control and do more damage than good, an example is the "cytokine storm" associated with covid.