Lately, it feels almost impossible to scroll through social media without coming across someone talking about the dangers of inflammation or the benefits of an anti-inflammatory diet.

But what is inflammation, how do we know if we have it, and what can we do about it?

That’s what we — Raj Punjabi-Johnson and Noah Michelson, co-hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — asked Tamiko Katsumoto, MD, a clinical associate professor in the division of immunology and rheumatology at Stanford University and a board-certified lifestyle medicine physician.

“I think the best way to define it is it represents the body’s response to a danger signal or to a damaging signal, and then it’s followed by a repair process,” Katsumoto told us. ”[It’s] this whole process by which our immune system is helping to defend us and it helps them to resolve that insult that we are faced with.”

That means that inflammation isn’t always a bad thing. Acute inflammation, which occurs when our bodies are trying to fight an infection or heal a wound, is short-term, beneficial and absolutely necessary to our health. It is a “knee-jerk response,” Katsumoto said, that involves a “very robust kind of activation of the immune system.”

“Without inflammation, we would be dead — it keeps us alive,” she emphasised.

However chronic inflammation is often “subtler.”

“Sometimes that flies a little bit below the radar, and we may not fully be aware that it’s happening,” Katsumoto said, but there is one symptom she hears in her client from her patients more than anything else: fatigue.

“People that say, oh, I’m just so tired. I have no energy.”

This kind of long-term inflammation, which can be caused by environmental exposures, our diets, and other lifestyle factors, is to blame for “a lot of the diseases that we’re dealing with in the Western world.”

“It’s little bit more insidious. It’s not as obvious. It’s not like when you have the flu, but it’s like some people kind of get more of a chronic ongoing low level of inflammation that can then lead to the development of a lot of these diseases,” Katsumoto noted.

Everything from Alzheimer’s to heart disease to depression can be caused by chronic inflammation.

“And then, of course, what I deal with in my clinic is maybe a higher level of that inflammation — things like rheumatoid arthritis, things like lupus, these are autoimmune conditions,” she said, adding that “the vast majority of our diseases are driven by inflammation, maybe like 80% or so.”

Katsumoto told us that those 80% of diseases caused by inflammation are believed to be “driven by lifestyle-related factors that we can have some control over.”

“We can’t control everything about what we’re exposed to, but we can control lifestyle factors that can be very, very protective of this inflammation and really can dampen it so that we don’t end up with a lot of these chronic diseases,” she said.

The first thing we should do to ward off harmful inflammation, according to Katsumoto, is ensure we have a healthy gut microbiome.

“It turns out that probably about 70% of our immune system resides in the gut,” she said. “To keep the microbiome happy, we’ve got to feed it fibre, and fibre, guess what? It’s only found in plants. Animal products do not have fibre. So we need to have plants to feed that gut … to create a very happy, healthy, diverse group of bugs that are going to keep what’s called immune homeostasis.”

Katsumoto noted that 95% of Americans are deficient in fiber, so we should concentrate on consuming 30 — the “magic number” for gut health — different kinds of plants each week, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, herbs and nuts.

“Fibre gets fermented by these microbes in our gut, and they produce these molecules that are called short-chain fatty acids. These short-chain fatty acids are really important in keeping our immune system in check and dampening it so it doesn’t overreact.”

Though Katsumoto tells her patients to avoid eating ultra-processed foods whenever possible because they can harm our gut microbiomes, she acknowledged that practicing moderation is our best bet.

“It’s really focusing on the whole food plants as much as possible, [but], you know, it doesn’t mean you have to be a saint,” she told us.

“I never draw lines in the sand. I think that’s not helpful … We don’t demonise anything. Yes, we all will eat some of those ultra-processed foods sometimes, and that’s okay,” Katsumoto said. “I think the bottom line is, if we can really try to keep our gut as happy as possible by really loading up with a lot of diverse plants, right? And, occasionally, some animal [products] are OK. But I just want to say, really, the plants are where the money is. And the plants are what are anti-inflammatory … and there’s been so much data suggesting that plants are super important for health and longevity.”

We also spoke with Katsumoto about other ways to fight chronic inflammation, the number one anti-inflammatory thing she is working on in her own life and much more, so click above to hear the full episode or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Make sure to subscribe to “Am I Doing It Wrong?” on whatever podcast platform you prefer so you don’t miss a single episode from our brand-new third season. You can also watch the full episode on YouTube.

For more from Dr. Tamiko Katsumoto, head here.

Have a question or need some help with something you’ve been doing wrong? Email us at AmIDoingItWrong@HuffPost.com, and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.

Keir Starmer has alluded to his ongoing tensions with Donald Trump after the US president threatened to withdraw American troops from Europe.

The prime minister spoke his EU allies during a meeting with the European Political Community in Armenia about increasing defence spending.

Starmer announced that the UK is currently in discussions to be joining the EU’s £78 billion loan scheme for Ukraine.

The PM said the scheme will help increase jobs in the UK, improve UK-EU relations and help Ukraine as the war against Russia rumbles on.

Starmer is hoping to reset relations with the EU just as Trump continues to cause upset with his Nato allies.

The White House has decided to withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany amid Trump’s ongoing feud with German chancellor Friedrich Merz.

The president has also attacked Starmer personally in recent months over the UK’s refusal to get involved with the Iran war.

The prime minister then gave a nod with this ongoing friction with Trump while discussing the new scheme with his European allies.

He said: “We cannot deny that some of the alliances that we have come to rely on are not in the place we would want them to be.

“There is more tension in the alliances than there should be, and it’s very important that we therefore face up to this.”

He urged Europe to spend more on defence because the continent has fallen “behind over many years” and so there must be a “stronger European element in Nato”.

But the PM also noted how the international conflicts – in Ukraine and Iran – are having a knock-on effect for Britons.

“In the United Kingdom, if you look at the economic forecast now and compare it to the economic forecast just three or four months ago, they are in materially different places,” he said.

A Downing Street spokesperson also said: “The prime minister met the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, and Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, at the European Political Community Summit earlier today.

“The leaders reflected on their recent diplomatic discussions, including on the situation in Ukraine.

“On the situation in the Middle East and the need for an end to the war in Iran, the leaders agreed on the need to reopen of the Strait of Hormuz to restore freedom of navigation and the free flow of global trade.

“They discussed European support already positioned in the region to reinforce security, and welcomed the close coordination between European allies.”

Starmer sent King Charles on a state visit to Washington last week in the hope that the monarch could help patch up relations with Trump.

While the president seemed enamoured by the royals, and dropped all whisky tariffs on Scotland, he continued to take aim at the PM over Iran.

Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

Therapist comment provided by BACP-certified therapists Matt Wotton and Clare Patterson.

You might already be familiar with “grey rocking,” or responding to a narcissistic or high-conflict person with a wall of boring, impersonal responses that provide a sort of armour.

But recently, I read about “yellow rocking,” a more polite version of the practice. Some say it can also help those handling inconsiderate and high-conflict people; others even recommend it in acrimonious custody cases.

So, we spoke to therapists Matt Wotton and Clare Patterson about the benefits of “yellow rocking” and how to use it.

It involves responding cordially, but not in an emotionally invested way, to someone who typically upsets you.

You can speak to them lightheartedly, without sharing any information you want to share or getting trapped in lines of thought or discussion you don’t want to.

The therapists said it’s about boundaries. Some techniques like CBT help people to “notice triggers, regulate their reactions, and respond deliberately rather than reactively”, like “yellow rocking,” said Wotton.

“The BIFF method used in divorce mediation – brief, informative, friendly and firm – follows the same principle. Keep responses short, factual and calm.”

Staying present and remembering you’re in control of the conversation is key.

“Yellow rocking basically repackages existing therapeutic ideas that have been around for decades – it’s broadly sensible stuff,” said Wotton.

“Both grey and yellow rocking are built on the idea that behaviour fades when it stops being rewarded.”

He added that while going no-contact is often the best solution, “yellow-rocking” can help in scenarios, like co-parenting, that make that impossible.

Patterson said, “I think when we feel confident and have good boundaries in ourselves, ‘yellow rocking’ comes naturally. It’s a place where the so-called ’narcissist’s behaviour simply cannot affect us in the same way it might if we experienced self-doubt or insecurity.

“By ‘not affect’, of course I don’t mean we won’t feel hurt, irritated or saddened by the behaviour at times. But when we no longer take it personally, we can respond with humour and lightness, rather than a place of defensiveness or an attempt to change or fix them.”

She ended, “Essentially, it’s about bringing power back to ourselves. It can be easy to want to fix the world ‘out there’ to feel safe and content, but perhaps in starting with feeling safe and content within ourselves, we may be surprised at what our external reality starts to reflect back.”

Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell has refused to say if she thinks Keir Starmer should continue as prime minister.

The party are expected to endure heavy losses in England’s local elections on Thursday after a gruelling two years in office.

Labour are also likely to lose control of the devolved Welsh government for the first time since devolution was introduced 30 years ago, and unlikely to beat the SNP in Scotland.

Pressure is mounting on Starmer to take the fall for the anticipated bloodbath, though the PM has insisted he will not be stepping down any time soon.

Even so, reports continue to suggest that his rivals – former deputy PM Angela Rayner, health secretary Wes Streeting and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham – are preparing to challenge him for No.10.

Powell, who was sacked as the Commons leader by Starmer last year, refused to give the PM clear backing in an interview on Sunday.

While sending a message to unhappy Labour MPs that “no one change” would help the party get back on the right track, she said: “I strongly believe that we’ve got the right agenda to start turning that around. To give people hope, an opportunity and see the change in their communities.”

Asked if Starmer was the correct person to deliver on those promises, the MP for Manchester Central said: “I’m not going to get into that.

“I think there’s no one change that [will affect] all of these situations. We’ve still got to tackle these big issues, and we’ve got to do it in the right way with the right values. Having some side order conversation about personnel and people, I think misses the point.”

She said: “If we get that wrong, then Nigel Farage is walking into Downing Street. We can all pretend that one switch over here would magically transform that. I just don’t believe that.”

Powell also told the Guardian there is “huge anger and despondency” within the party over the scandal surrounding Peter Mandelson.

Starmer’s decision to appoint the ex-Labour peer as the UK’s ambassador to the US, despite his links to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, caused fury within the party.

Mandelson has since been sacked but new details – including questions about his failed vetting status – continue to haunt the PM.

Powell is known to be a close friend to Burnham, who tried to run for the Gorton and Denton by-election but was blocked by Labour’s executive body.

Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

“I’ve written a list,” my mother said as our session began in her therapist’s San Francisco office. “It’s called ‘the 40 most unforgivable things I’ve ever done to my daughters.’”

Fog flowed above the skylights as she fidgeted in her seat, twirling her blue chiffon scarf. I cringed. I hated the idea of therapy, but Mom loved it. She’d convinced me to go, even though I protested, telling her, “I don’t need any apologies.”

At 30, I was still frozen in fright as if I were 7 years old and hiding under my bed because I feared my next beating.

I sat opposite my mom while she smoothed her light powder pink matching skirt and jacket so no wrinkles would show, as if that would somehow help in ironing out our own.

My parents, who were Russian Jewish second cousins, met at a bar mitzvah and married at 19. Mom was 20 when I was born. She got addicted to speed trying to lose the baby weight and used barbiturates to sleep. When I was 7, my parents divorced. My father moved to Mexico while my mom, sister and I remained in New York City.

Mom had been seeing her psychoanalyst weekly for decades to process her pain of having been an abuser for the first 13 years of my life. Focused only on becoming a college professor and starting my own family, I’d spent those same decades pretending I wasn’t damaged in any way. Denial protected me and I had never seen a mental health specialist.

Twenty years after she got sober, she set up this time to formally ask for forgiveness. Until then, we’d often gotten together and had perfectly pleasant times by never talking about the past.

My lower back ached as I settled into the stiff beige leather chair, wishing I wasn’t there.

“Today’s session is for your mom,” the therapist, Terry, said. “She wants to tell you how sorry she is about the abuse that took place when you were young. She’s been plagued with guilt.”

I looked over at my 50-year-old mother, whose hazel green eyes I had inherited along with her petite frame and dimples. I also have the same thick wavy brown hair, and perhaps the propensity to fidget, since I couldn’t stop nervously twisting a strand as she spoke that day. In every other way, though, I felt nothing like her.

“The fact that your mom is about to apologise for specific acts of violence and neglect in no way excuses her past behaviour,” Terry said.

I sat motionless and muted, staring at Mom. I knew what she was going to say and I didn’t want to hear it.

“When Leslie was 5, I repeatedly closed her in the garbage room and told her I didn’t want her anymore,” Mom read aloud. “Each time she tried to come out, I slammed the door shut and told her she was being thrown away.”

I quivered as if she were still locking me in that rubbish room in our swanky Manhattan apartment building. I shrank back to being tiny and helpless.

Mom continued, “I know I can’t undo the past. I feel so much pain, I don’t want to die without saying how sorry I am for everything on my list.”

She read aloud from her categorised maltreatments, among them: strangling me, pulling my sisters and I around the apartment by our hair, hitting us at midnight when her speed kicked in, forcing us to clean at 2 a.m., telling us repeatedly she wished we were dead and had never had been born, regretting the drug dealers she brought home, and holding primal scream groups at the house where we had to hear adults yell obscenities several nights a week.

Mom made it only partially through her list before I could barely stand it. My mouth was ajar and my breathing jagged, as if gasping for air in a room that had been lit on fire.

Ribbons of red streaked across the skyline as the sun set. The session ended with an eerie silence. Still pulled by a primal force to please her, I finally spoke.

“Mom, I forgive you.”

I had not gotten over any of it —I’d just gotten good at saying I had. Mom’s description of each act she regretted reminded me of everything I tried to ignore. It was both re-traumatising and validating to hear her voice these truths in the presence of her analyst. Though I remembered it all, hearing her recount the details woke me up to my deep and unprocessed pain.

Mom’s face went pale and her limbs went limp. Perspiration surrounded her hairline as she tilted her head down and said softly, “I can’t believe how mercilessly I hurt my own babies.”

A late lunch at the Thai restaurant directly below her therapist’s office had always been the plan, but after the session I had no appetite. The scent of lemongrass and garlic wafted around the room, but did nothing to return me to my senses.

Mom must have known. Before I scanned the menu, she said, “I don’t know how you can sit near me after hearing all that. You must think I’m a monster. How can you even stand to look at me?”

I tried again to casually dismiss her anxiety.

“Oh, of course I can look at you and have lunch with you because I love you,” I said. “That was all so long ago. We can move on now.”

There were multicoloured Christmas lights and twinkling mini-Buddhas surrounding our booth, but I felt anything but festive. As a child who was abused, I always craved my mother’s love and professed my own for her often in hopes of getting more. Over the years that followed, I learned my behavior was typical for kids who went through what I did.

The menu blurred as I blinked back tears. I knew I was lying to myself and I wasn’t ready to move on. I still harboured unresolved resentment and anger toward my mom. Faking feelings was my jam, though, so I blurted out, “What great flavors!” after my first bite of pad Thai, even though I didn’t taste anything except bitterness.

Though I was upset, I realised that Mom’s bravery to say how sorry she was for each of her specific offences enabled me to understand that I would need to begin my own therapy at some point, but I wasn’t ready yet. My fierce focus on forgetting my past continued for years.

No one close to me could understand why I still had a relationship with my mom after the abuse ended.

Therapy, which I finally did begin 10 years after that session, and Buddhism helped to create loving emotional connections for us. We began practicing Buddhism when I was in the seventh grade. My mother had planned to kill herself, but instead tried an ancient meditation chant, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, based on Mahayana Buddhist teachings. She dared me to try it with her for 100 days as one last attempt at happiness. I tried it, initially to prove her wrong, but as we chanted day after day, I felt hope and noticed mom becoming kinder.

Within that year, she stopped using drugs and hitting us. This motivated me to stay connected to her. The Sanskrit word myo means to revive. Through the visceral vibration of chanting with her daily, I started sensing maternal love from Mom. Her actions to transform our destiny started with our shared spiritual journey when I was a teenager, enabling me to enjoy time with her even though the trauma of the unspeakable things she did was still locked in my cells. Before I finished that school year, she began seeing her therapist.

I was 32 when I received her formal apology. It became a positive pivot in our relationship, but I still couldn’t entirely move forward. Eight years later, I became so sick, I ended up on the floor in a faetal position unable to walk my kids to school. I was diagnosed with severe, chronic, ulcerative colitis — an autoimmune disease.

A Reiki practitioner I started seeing at the time asked me, “Did you ever experience any trauma?” I laughed nervously and said, “My mom used to smack, hit, and yell at me most days for over a decade, but that was so long ago, that can’t be why I’m sick.”

She looked at me and said, “That’s exactly why you’re sick.”

That’s when I finally started therapy and began to understand why it had been so life-changing for my mom.

Our braided spiritual journey and her atonement initiated the reconciliation of our family, but I had a lot of work to do if I truly wanted to heal. While we never had a second therapeutic hour together, I continued the work Mom set in motion on my own.

My mother passed away from diabetes 10 years after I began processing my terrifying childhood. She was only 69.

I find comfort in having been able to experience joy with her during her lifetime, which is something I once never thought would be possible.

On her deathbed, she looked up at me and said, “How can you truly love me?”

Unlike the lie I’d told in the Thai restaurant years earlier, this time I meant it when I told her, “Mom, I do love you. You can let go and go to your next life. I will be OK.”

After her death, I found nine of her diaries while clearing out her office. She recounted the abusive years in each journal. I learned she was consumed by self-hatred for her entire life — that’s why she thought suicide was her only way out when I was in middle school.

I also found the original atonement list in one of her notebooks. It spanned 10 pages. I discovered that her therapist had encouraged her to create that formal session to make amends.

Reading her words line by line, I was overwhelmed not only by her regret for hurting me, but also by how she desperately wanted my happiness.

Mom halted generational trauma in its tracks by changing her behavior, which led to my ability to break the cycle. She continues to propel my healing even after her death. My daughters marvel at the transformation from one generation to another, and on more than one occasion, they have told me they’re proud of me for changing our family patterns.

I continue practicing the Buddhism my mother and I began when I was 13. I still go to therapy to process my painful past. But now, instead of only her wrath, I feel my mother’s courage to transform her life and repent. Remembering the words she said to me so long ago helps me heal as I continue to hear her apology in my head. I forgive her again and again. She showed me how darkness can turn into light. What greater love is there than that?

Leslie Mancillas is a writing professor in California working on her memoir about surviving childhood abuse, My Bipolar Mom Almost Killed Me: How A 100-Day Bet Saved Us. Follow her on Instagram @lesliemancillas.author. You can learn more about her at www.lesliemancillas.com.

This piece was previously published on HuffPost and is being shared again now as part of HuffPost Personal’s “Best Of” series.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.

• Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
• Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI – this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
• CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
• The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk
• Rethink Mental Illness offers practical help through its advice line which can be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). More info can be found on rethink.org.