4 min read AS MOST ANYONE on TikTok will tell you, unchecked inflammation can be very, very bad for you. Chronic inflammation can lead to all manner of health problems, from tissue damage to cardiovascular disorders . While this is true, there’s one part that often gets left out of the conversation: not all inflammation is bad. “We’re all so triggered by the word ‘inflammation’ now,” says Joshua T. Goldman, MD , family medicine and sports medicine physician at UCLA. “I see a lot of buzz around inflammation, but if you turned [inflammation] all off, we’d be a mess. We’d never fix any damaged structure.” Case in point: We need acute inflammation to build muscle. “Without inflammation, exercise-induced muscle overload would not lead to increased muscle size, strength, and function,” Brian Andonian, MD , assistant professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, tells MH .…