IL-6 isn't an "inflammatory protein". It is a transient signalling molecule of immune involvement..it raises when you go for a walk and eat a carb heavy meal, so is walking and eating inflammatory too?
You can't look at cytokines in isolation..cytokines are not inflammation..they are the response to something like PAMP's e.g PRR's,TLR2/4, Dectin-1, CARD9, DAMP's e.g TLR-9, TNF-a, IL-β, hypoxia e.g chronic HIF-1a signalling , mitochondrial ineffiency e.g reduced PGC-1a, reduced OXPHOS that immune function has decided it doesn't have the energy or resources to resolve, so the threat assessment never reaches the resolution phase e.g IL-10, Tregs, M1-M2, SPM's like it would with food poisoning, wound healing, bacterial infections that induce aggressive acute immune function like c.difficile infections and waterborne illness
Inflammation is the dysregulated response of immune function to a perceived threat that it does not have the facility to, or has not received the gating to resolve, so it just manages the situation. That "management" is the inflammation as it wastes NAD, forces longer windows of aerobic glycolysis, induces more hypoxia. Not cytokines .which means all these studies are particularly nonsense. Furthemore there isn't anything in cacao xanthines or polyphenols or any other polyphenol for that matter that can resolve inflammation. The keyword is resolve..it can transiently inhibit NF-kB through IKK, and it can push Nrf2(this would probably just result in even more redox stress though without resolution), but neither of these things equal resolution..without the signalling cacscade i mentioned earlier, there is no getting out of "inflammaging" or chronic inflammation and because inflammaging is largely driven by hypoxia through things like uncoupling of eNOS, BH4, mitochondrial inefficiency etc this is something you cannot reverse beyond a certain point or age..inflammaging to use the cringe term, is inevitable and you might as well just call it aging.
