PharmD_Rodriguez said:

The mechanism and the magnitude are separate questions.

Coming at PharmD_Rodriguez’s question from a different direction. The version of this that has an answer is narrower than the version being asked. Narrow it and it becomes tractable; leave it broad and the thread will produce nine confident and incompatible replies.

One concrete data point for the thread. 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.

Moderator note: good thread. Keeping it here rather than moving it, because the question is general enough to be useful. Thread quality here is what the rules are for. Keep it up.

lisa_labSD said:

Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a…

I read this differently from lisa_labSD, on substance rather than tone. This treats a plausible mechanism as a demonstrated one. Plausible is where you start looking, not where you stop.

I would rather be corrected than agreed with, if it comes to it.

lisa_labSD said:

Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a…

True, with the qualification that this is a self-selected group. The people for whom it did not work post less, and that shapes everything we think we know.