The Mechanism
The biology here is genuinely interesting, and understanding it at a level above "good for you" produces a qualitatively different relationship with the practice. The mechanism operates through a pathway that evolution conserved because it solved a specific problem — a problem that modern environments have made either obsolete or chronically overactivated, depending on the specific pathway involved. Understanding which situation applies to you requires knowing something about your own physiological baseline that most people have never measured.
The research on individual variation in this mechanism is particularly relevant. The population studies establish that the average response is positive, but the standard deviation is large enough that some individuals are non-responders, some are hyper-responders, and a small fraction have baseline physiologies where the average recommendation is actively counterproductive. The practical question is not whether the intervention works on average but whether it works for you — and the answer to that question requires personalised measurement, not population guidance.
The Evidence Hierarchy
The claims being made about this intervention in popular health content exist at multiple levels of evidence quality, and distinguishing between them is the most valuable filtering skill a health-literate person can develop. The mechanistic claims — based on in vitro research and animal models — are often accurate as descriptions of biology but do not reliably predict outcomes in living humans at realistic doses in realistic conditions. The epidemiological claims — based on observational studies of populations — capture real associations but cannot establish causation without additional evidence. The randomised trial evidence, where it exists, is definitive within its specific population and conditions and needs to be extended to other contexts with appropriate caution.
Your Protocol
Given the current evidence, the most defensible protocol involves three components: a minimum effective dose that the trial evidence supports, a measurement approach that will tell you whether the intervention is working for you specifically, and a defined evaluation window before drawing conclusions. Twelve weeks of consistent implementation with measurement at weeks four and twelve gives you the personalised evidence that no population study can provide.