hyun_seoul said:

If two explanations both fit, the useful question is which one predicts something the other does not.

Coming at hyun_seoul’s question from a different direction. Start from the measurement rather than the conclusion. Almost every disagreement here turns out to be two people measuring different things and comparing the numbers anyway.

One concrete data point for the thread. 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.

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

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

dan_philly said:

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

Worth saying that the confident version of this is more useful to the person writing it than to the person reading it.

Reporting back.

Closing this out. What actually changed my mind was the point about waiting for a trend instead of reading a single measurement, which is embarrassing in hindsight and worth saying anyway.