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Table 1 Barriers to the conduct of randomised clinical trials (RCTs) on nutrition

From: Evidence-based practice within nutrition: what are the barriers for improving the evidence and how can they be dealt with?

Specific barriers to RCTs on nutrition

Comments

Testing a nutrient

Should one use the nutrient as an add-on to usual diet, or should the diet be depleted of the nutrient?

Testing a food intervention

How to assess dietary intake

Assessing dietary intake

Combination of diverse methods including the 24-h dietary recall method are likely to be best

Selection of outcomes

Depends on the objective of the study

  1. Barriers as identified by the European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN) panel in the context of the ECRIN-IA project. These barriers are additional to the barriers that affect all clinical trials and trials on rare diseases [4, 5]