Background/Aims: Despite the advantages of fortifying flour with iron, there are still special concerns regarding the possible adverse effects of the extra iron consumed by nonanemic individuals. This study aimed to investigate the oxidative stress and iron status following 8 and 16 months of consumption of iron-fortified flour in nonanemic men. Methods: In a before-and-after intervention study, 78 nonanemic apparently healthy 40- to 65-year-old men were randomly selected from Semnan, in the northeast of Iran. Data were collected at three time points. Evaluation of oxidative stress biomarkers as well as the assessment of iron status was performed in all three stages. After baseline data collection, the flour fortification program was started with 30 mg/kg iron as ferrous sulfate. Results: After 16 months, serum iron levels had significantly increased from 102.9 ± 31.5 µg/dl (baseline) to 117.2 ± 29.8 µg/dl (p < 0.001). The mean total antioxidant capacity (1.71 ± 0.10 µM) was significantly lower than that at baseline (1.83 ± 0.17 µM; p < 0.01). Among other oxidative stress biomarkers, only superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase activity increased significantly compared to the beginning of the study (p < 0.001 and p < 0.001, respectively). The results of this study did not show any symptoms of iron overload after 8 and 16 months. Conclusions: Our data did not support the safety of flour fortification with 30 mg/kg iron as ferrous sulfate as a community-based approach to control iron deficiency in nonanemic healthy men.

Food security and climate change are multidimensional issues. Therefore, a lack of knowledge about the most essential variables made these concepts more complex for decision-making and highlighted the need for credible decision support methods. Here, we aim to develop an accurate tool by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method to explore the priority indicator of food security under climate change in Iran and social network analysis (SNA) to support decisions. The following steps were conducted for the AHP approach: a literature review, a Likert questionnaire and experts’ interviews for variable selection and the variables’ weight determination and prioritization by pairwise comparison questionnaire, designed based on the hierarchy matrix of the criteria and sub-criteria of food security and climate change. The SNA was employed to understand the robustness of the informants’ points of view for indicator selection. After the analysis, 61 criteria were extracted. Sustainability was the important criterion, weighted 0.248. The most important sub-criteria (indicators): groundwater sources, household income, underweight adolescent ratio, food wastage and an annual average of precipitation, weighted 0.095, 0.091, 0.125, 0.227 and 0.236, respectively. The SNA showed that professionals with academic origins focused on the sustainability component. The AHP tool is a credible technique to distinguish the most important criteria. The results might be employed to estimate or predict food security under climate change and simplify decision making in Iran.