Nutritional Physiology and Health Status

Learn about the influence of food consumption patterns on the human body in various age groups and situations like growth, pregnancy, sports and disease

Would you like to learn more about designing intervention studies and interpreting the results?  Does it appeal to you to focus on the influence of nutrition on the health and disease status of individuals? If so, the specialisation Nutritional Physiology and Health Status might be a good choice for you.  

In this specialisation, you will follow courses such as ‘Nutritional Physiology’, ‘Design and Interpretation of Nutrition Intervention studies’ and ‘Nutrition and the Ageing Body’. Beyond these core courses, there is a diverse array of other courses available including ‘Nutrition and Sports’, ‘Hidden Hunger’, and ‘Principles of Sensory Science’.   

As you can see from these courses, this specialisation is notably broad.  

Within this specialisation, WUR provides a master's track in Nutrition and Dietetics. Tailored for students with a background in dietetics, this track enables the expansion of knowledge and the development of research skills to become an academic dietitian. You will find more information about the track here.

During your MSc thesis, you can focus on one topic in more depth through one of the following chair groups:

Human and Animal Physiology
Sensory Science and Eating Behaviour
Nutrition and Disease
Global Nutrition
Nutritional Biology

Thesis examples

  • The effect of smell loss on eating behaviour (Sensory science)
  • Determinants of breast milk composition (Global nutrition)
  • Menstrual blood and iron loss in Malawian girls (Global Nutrition)
  • Nutrition and Endometriosis (Nutrition and Disease)
  • Animal- and plant based protein intake and body composition in colorectal cancer patients (Nutrition and Disease)
  • Nutritional aspects of the gut-brain axis (Nutritional Biology)
  • Eat-Lancet diet and bone health in older adults (Nutritional Biology)
  • The effect of aging and hypoxia on muscle mitochondrial function (Human and Animal Physiology)
  • Effects of early life nutrition on inflammation later in life (Human and Animal Physiology)