Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. Take it one variable at a time. Almost every unanswerable question in these threads is unanswerable because three things changed in the same fortnight, and no amount of subsequent argument can untangle them after the fact.

Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. The boring version of this is the one that works, and the boring version is: measure a baseline, change one variable, wait, measure again under the same conditions. Nobody wants that answer and it is still the answer.

Following on from dave_SLC — and this may be the naive question:

How long did you give it before you decided it was working?

TirzTom said:

The boring version of this is the one that works, and the boring version is: measure a baseline, change one variable, wait, measure again under the…

I read this differently from TirzTom, on substance rather than tone. Filing an objection on the n=1 problem. Personal experience is genuine evidence about one person and very weak evidence about anybody else, and this thread keeps promoting the first into the second.

If somebody has the primary source to hand I would rather cite it than paraphrase it.

Moderator note: good thread. Keeping it here rather than moving it, because the question is general enough to be useful. Carry on.