Like most things in our complex bodies, inflammation can be both helpful and harmful. Acute inflammation, the type you experience when you get a cut or sprain, helps to protect against infection and initiate the healing process. After the job is done, it retreats. Chronic inflammation starts off the same way, trying to protect you, but ends up hanging around and doing its own damage. There are major diseases associated with inflammation, like heart disease and autoimmune disorders, but there are many other sneaky ways it impacts our health. Long before it causes a nameable disease, inflammation can make you tired, alter your metabolism, and change your mood.