chris_chi24 said:

It helps to say which part of this you are uncertain about.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. 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.

Correct me if the detail matters more than I have assumed.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. Worth stating the units and the reference range whenever you post a number here. A large fraction of the apparent disagreement in these threads is two people using different units and both being right.

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

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

PharmacoVig_BOS said:

Worth stating the units and the reference range whenever you post a number here.

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. 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.

Happy to go further on any of that.

PharmacoVig_BOS said:

Worth stating the units and the reference range whenever you post a number here.

Agreed, and the size of the effect matters as much as its existence. Something real and small gets treated here as though it were real and decisive.