Dr.AddMedPHL 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…

Thank you for spelling out the reasoning rather than just the conclusion. Printing the relevant bit and taking it with me.

Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads. 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.

andrew_nyc said:

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

Second this. Nothing to add that would improve it.

andrew_nyc said:

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

Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. 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.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. If you are comparing against somebody else’s result, check that you are comparing the same measurement taken the same way. Most of the apparent contradictions in these threads dissolve at that step.