The Difference between a Therapeutic and Preventive Trial

Difference Between a Therapeutic and Preventive Trial
Interventions in epidemiologic studies can be grouped as either preventive or therapeutic trials. Therapeutic trials refer to clinical trials where new treatments are tested on individuals to gauge their effectiveness in treating diseases. In preventive trials, healthy or at-risk individuals undergo studies to assess whether a treatment is effective in disease prevention.  
  An example of preventive trials would be hypertension prevention trials done in various phases. The first phase assessed the feasibility of lifestyle interventions such as sodium restriction, weight loss, stress management, and nutrition supplements such as calcium, magnesium, fish oil, and potassium in lowering blood pressure. The study targeted men and women between the ages of thirty and fifty-four who were at risk of high blood pressure (Ozemek et al., 2018). The selected subjects had their diastolic blood pressure ranging from 83 to 89mmHg. The researchers delivered the lifestyle interventions in a single-blinded manner and t...