Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person. Both are real; they answer different questions and get quoted as if they were the same one.

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

TinaHashiRN said:

The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person.

This is my experience too, for whatever a second data point is worth.

TinaHashiRN said:

The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. It helps to ask what evidence would change your mind before you look at any. If nothing would, the discussion is not about evidence, and it is better to say so early than to spend nine posts discovering it.

Happy to go further on any of that.

Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a trend.

A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:

How would you tell the difference between that and the alternative explanation?