I have been running caffeine for three weeks and the honest summary is that the effect is smaller than the internet suggests and real.
The animal data is stronger than the human data and the human data is not nothing, it is just small.
Vivid dreams and mild headache for the first 7 days, then nothing. Textbook for this class, apparently.
My rule now: if a claim cannot survive being written down with the numbers attached, it is marketing.
If you need three other compounds to notice the first one, you have not tested the first one.
Willing to accept that my own experience is the weakest evidence in the room.
Narrow conclusion, briefly right. Broad conclusion, interestingly wrong. I know which I keep choosing.
Baseline first.
What is the first thing you would read if you were starting from zero?
Narrow conclusion.
If it needs three other compounds to notice, you have not tested the first one.
Stupid question: how do you know whether what is in the vial matches the label at all?
How long before you can reasonably say something is or is not doing anything?
Same here.
Read the methods section. It is the only part that says whether the conclusion is allowed to exist. Three weeks in on caffeine and it lines up.
An inconclusive account is useful if it stops the next person mistaking a story for a controlled comparison. Three weeks in on caffeine and it lines up.
Log dose, time and sleep. Ten seconds a day and it turns the anecdote into something you can look at.
Read methods. How long have you been on caffeine?
Loose evidence is not nothing, but a washout either side is the only reason to trust your own take.
Read the methods section. It is the only part that says whether the conclusion is allowed to exist.