Your patient has done everything you've asked. The labs still aren't moving. Now what?
This course sharpens the clinical thinking for the questions that show up in every renal practice — the complex, the nuanced, and the ones that need more than standard MNT to answer well.
Built for CKD dietitians. Equally valuable in hemo. For any renal RD who wants stronger tools for the hardest questions in kidney nutrition.
When you do everything right and it still doesn't add up.
You've done the work. Your patient has done the work. The labs should be moving. This experience — doing everything right and still not getting there — is one of the most frustrating in renal practice. And it makes nutrition look like it isn't working, when the real issue is that the standard framework ran out before the clinical picture did.
Something else is influencing the picture. Gut dysfunction. Thyroid involvement. Inflammatory load. Toxins. These aren't rare — they show up regularly, and they need a different framework to see.
There is more nutrition opportunity in CKD than most training covers.
Standard renal MNT is the essential foundation — and this course builds from there. The nutrition opportunity in CKD extends well beyond potassium, phosphorus, and protein. Each cell below is a lever that nutrition can meaningfully influence.
The shaded cells are what this course is built around — where the answers to your hardest cases often live.
Ready to enroll?
A thinking framework for the cases that need more.
Functional medicine is a structured way of reasoning through clinical complexity — asking different questions about root causes, system interactions, and what else might be driving the picture. You don't need to become a functional medicine practitioner. You need enough of the framework to evaluate what you're seeing, know what to ask next, and recognize when to refer.
This course teaches that methodology first, then applies it to each clinical area. The framework comes first. The topics follow.
What's inside the course.
Nine self-paced modules that build the reasoning framework first, then apply it across the clinical territory where it matters most in renal practice. Plus two bonus modules.
| 3.1 | Methodology & mindset | The functional medicine framework in renal practice — how to think through complexity and evaluate cases beyond the standard nutrition picture. |
| 3.2 | Gut as a core principle | The gut-kidney axis, dysbiosis in CKD, and why gut function sits at the center of so many cases that appear to be about something else. |
| 3.3 | The 5R framework | A structured clinical approach to gut restoration — remove, replace, reinoculate, repair, rebalance — applied to renal patients. |
| 3.4 | Supplement assessment in kidney disease | Evidence levels, dosing, CKD-specific considerations, and drug interactions — so you can respond to supplement questions with confidence, not uncertainty. |
| 3.5 | Functional testing case review | Real cases using micronutrient panels, food sensitivity testing, and gut mapping — with frameworks for interpreting results and knowing when to refer. |
| 3.6 | Build your tools & practical application | Intake forms, symptom surveys, toxicity questionnaires, patient protocols. The framework becomes something you use Monday morning. |
| 3.7 | Thyroid health & kidney function | How thyroid status influences GFR, what to screen for, and why it's one of the more commonly overlooked factors in cases with unexplained progression. |
| 3.8 | Environmental toxins | What's in scope for a renal RD, how to screen effectively, and how to have clear clinical conversations with patients who raise this topic. |
| 3.9 | Supplements & herbs in kidney disease | An evidence-based look at herbal medicine alongside supplement use — what has clinical support, what to avoid, and how to evaluate what your patients are already taking. |
| Bonus Modules | ||
| Bonus | Blood Pressure Complexity Roundtable | When sodium restriction isn't enough — a clinical discussion of the nutritional, hormonal, and lifestyle factors driving blood pressure in CKD patients. |
| Bonus | Mind-Body Health and CKD | Understanding cortisol, the parasympathetic nervous system response, and why the stress-kidney connection is clinically significant — and actionable — for renal dietitians. |
A course and a resource you'll come back to.
We've built this course as both a learning experience and a practical reference. Each module includes a readable guide with real clinical application — the kind of practical street smarts that don't always make it into standard training but absolutely show up in your hardest patients.
The goal is that you finish this course with frameworks and references you actually reach for — not material you reviewed once and filed away.
Per CDR guidelines, branded materials cannot be included in the CPE portion of the course. Any brands or tools we recommend will be offered as a separate free opt-in resource — not included in the CPE modules, but available alongside your enrollment for those who want them.
