The term nutrigenomics was first coined in 2002 by Dr Michael Fenech of the CSIRO's Division of Human Nutrition in Australia. It is made by combining the words "nutrition" and "genomics,". Nutri means "nutrition", and genomics refers to the study of genes.

Many advances have been developed in our understanding of the human genome over the years. Nutrigenomics builds on this knowledge to provide a complete picture of how nutrition affects our health.

In simple terms, nutrigenomics studies how nutrition influences gene expression and overall health. From a nutrigenomic perspective, food is not just a source of calories or nutrients but also information that can influence our gene expression.