Video: Meet Your Professors — Dr. Jean Fry Studies The Role Of Nutrition In Acl Injuries
Dr. Jean Fry
Jean Fry, PhD, RDN, is an assistsant professor in the department of Athletic Training and Clinical Nutrition. She researches the optimization of micronutrient status to support recovery after musculoskeletal injury and hypertrophic response to resistance exercise training, especially in older adults. She is a nationally recognized expert in clinical nutrition education, and a program accreditation site visitor for the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND).
Fry has also developed clinical nutrition questions for the national registration examination for dietitians (RD exam) and has conducted exam bias review for the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). She enjoys teaching students about nutrition building in real-world clinical perspectives — and she is also an avid weightlifter and gardener.
Most recently, Fry has been researching the role of nutrition in ACL injuries.
“I work with physical therapists and muscle physiologists here at UK who are doing similar work but in their own fields,” she said. “I'm looking at the role of nutrition in everything from the quality of food that people are taking in, to the overall amount of food in different nutrients that they're taking in — right down to the way nutrients are affecting the muscle tissue itself, that kind of full spectrum of how food and nutrients are affecting the muscle in people who suffer ACL injuries.”
The problem is important, she says, because most people who suffer from an ACL injury will eventually get knee osteoarthritis. But nutrition could help that problem.
“Maybe we can help prevent some of those long-term consequences that are really painful and debilitating,” she said. It’s another way the department can help the College’s mission.
“Here at the College of Health Sciences, one of our top priorities is helping to train health professionals to serve the state of Kentucky,” she said. “A unique aspect of the College is having a broad, semi-exploratory undergraduate professional degree program. A lot of schools and colleges will have those programs, but they don't have exposure to health professionals at the same time — here, our students will be exposed to different health professionals.
“Their faculty will come from different fields,” she continued. “They'll really get exposure and more knowledge about different kinds of health professions. I just find the University of Kentucky faculty in particular to just be so kind and so welcoming to students — we really are receptive to talking to students and engaging them about careers in our field.”
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