VanRx_Mike said:

Most of what circulates confidently in this community traces back to one summary of one study, and the qualifier was dropped somewhere in the third…

Can confirm. Same sequence, different timescale. Nothing to add that would improve it.

VanRx_Mike said:

Most of what circulates confidently in this community traces back to one summary of one study, and the qualifier was dropped somewhere in the third…

Coming at VanRx_Mike’s question from a different direction. The honest answer is that the effect is real, the magnitude is contested, and the individual variation is larger than either. Those three things can all be true at once, and most arguments here are two people holding different parts of that.

One concrete data point for the thread. Practical: whatever you change, write down the date and the reason. In three months the reason is what you will have forgotten, and the reason is what makes the record worth having.

One thing that is still open after VanRx_Mike’s answer:

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

Old thread, but it comes up first when you search for this, so it is worth updating. One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number. A figure without its method cannot be checked, and an unchecked figure is how this community accumulates folklore.

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