Curative describes something able to cure a medical condition — to remove the disease itself rather than merely easing its symptoms. A curative treatment eliminates the underlying cause: antibiotics curing a bacterial infection, or surgery removing a localised tumour, stand against palliative care, which manages pain and suffering when cure is not possible. In food and nutrition the word is used more loosely, and regulators watch it closely. A food or supplement may be described as curative only with solid clinical evidence; most nutrition interventions are preventive or supportive — correcting a deficiency, lowering a risk factor — rather than curative in the strict medical sense. Claims that a diet or product “cures” disease fall under medicines law in most jurisdictions, which is why responsible labelling sticks to structure-function language instead.