system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If inflammation is bad, why does our body do it?

I constantly see "anti-inflammatory properties" listed as a health benefit of various nutrients in healthy foods, but my understanding is that inflammation is a natural process of the human body. So anti-inflammatory foods are basically inhibiting a normal biological process.

Why do we need to do that to be healthy? Why do we have a self-destructive inflammatory behavior in the human body anyway?
gpt
Inflammation is like a pulled fire alarm. When shit us going down and you need first responders, Inflammation is them showing up. Redness and swelling means police, ambulance, and fire trucks are at the scene. 

When you have an injury or infection, boom, Inflammation. Kill off baddies, mobilize the troops.

Inflammation can be too much of a good thing. It *can* get in the way of healing. Like if police, fire, and ambulance are blocking construction crews and normal traffic? Sometimes you need anti-inflammatory medicine to heal better. 

What's bad news is if the fire alarm is *always* ringing. Or always ringing at 50% volume. Ugh. First of all it means that stuff is getting choked off by emergency services *all* the time, and second, in a true emergency what sort of response will you get? Police fire and ambulance are deployed all over the place already, they're stretched thin. Normal maintenance can't happen and firemen are hacking down perfectly good doors with their axes. 

Anti-inflammatory foods, exercise routines, and such help to turn down/off the constant fire alarms so that the rest of your body can renew and repair and go about its business. And then when a real emergency happens, you get a high contrast from baseline normal. Not an everyday thing.