cut fresh fruits and vegetables on a butcher block countertop

Nutrition education across the curriculum

Nutrition is a fundamental component of health, disease prevention and patient care. Nutrition education is integrated throughout all four years of the undergraduate medical curriculum, reinforcing the role of evidence-based nutrition in promoting health, preventing disease and managing chronic conditions. Students develop the knowledge and clinical skills needed to assess nutritional health, counsel patients on lifestyle changes and incorporate nutrition into comprehensive, patient-centered care.

Preparing future physicians to address nutrition and health

The University of Louisville School of Medicine supports the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) initiative to expand nutrition education across the medical education continuum. In alignment with this effort, medical schools are encouraged to assess existing nutrition content and ensure a minimum of 40 hours of nutrition education across undergraduate medical training.

The University of Louisville School of Medicine has a longstanding commitment to nutrition education and already exceeds this benchmark. Rather than relying on isolated coursework, our curriculum integrates nutrition science longitudinally across all four years through a combination of foundational instruction, problem-based learning (PBL), and clinical application.

Nutrition concepts are intentionally embedded throughout our curriculum to align with students’ developing biomedical knowledge, allowing learners to apply principles of metabolism, inflammation, endocrine regulation, and disease pathophysiology in clinically relevant contexts. This approach promotes deeper understanding of nutrition as a core component of patient care rather than a stand-alone discipline.

In parallel, nutrition is reinforced as a longitudinal theme across organ systems and clinical experiences, including chronic disease management, preventive care, and differences in health outcomes. This horizontal integration across disciplines and vertical integration from preclinical to clinical training ensure that students revisit and refine nutrition concepts at increasing levels of complexity.

We continue to evaluate our curriculum to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement, with the goal of strengthening physician competency in nutrition and reducing the burden of chronic disease in Kentucky and beyond.

As part of our commitment to the HHS initiative, this website highlights current efforts in nutrition education and identifies opportunities to further enhance integration across foundational sciences, and clinical training, as well as alignment with graduate medical education and premedical preparation in the nutrition sciences.

Nutrition and medicine

From foundational science to clinical practice, nutrition education is woven throughout the University of Louisville School of Medicine curriculum. Our students graduate prepared to integrate nutrition into preventive care, chronic disease management and patient-centered treatment across every specialty. Learn more about the MD curriculum and how ULSOM prepares future physicians to improve health through evidence-based care.

View our MD Academics and Programs