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Objective: Recent evidence reported that some dietary compounds like quercetin and apigenin as the most well-known flavonoids with anti-inflammatory effects may inhibit SARS-CoV-2 main protease. The hypothesis of the promising effects and possible mechanisms of action of quercetin against COVID-19 were assessed in this article.Materials and Methods: Related papers on the inhibitory effects of quercetin against COVID-19 were collected using the following search strategy: “corona or coronavirus or COVID or COVID-19 or viral or virus” AND “nutrient or flavonoid or Quercetin”.Results: The findings indicated that quercetin can be considered an effective agent against COVID-19 because of its SARS-CoV-2 main protease and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase inhibitory effects. In addition, quercetin may attenuate angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE-2) receptors leading to a reduction of SARS-CoV-2 ability to enter host cells. Moreover, the antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory activities of quercetin have been frequently reported.Conclusion: Quercetin may be an effective agent for managing the complications of COVID-19. Further longitudinal human studies are warranted.

Background: Complications of anti-cancer therapies can lead to inadequate nutrient intake, indigestion and deficiency of nutrients. The present study aims to better understand the nutritional challenges of hospitalized patients with cancer. Methods: The participants were patients referred to the oncology ward of the hospital who were selected by the maximum diversity sampling of patients with various cancers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data and continued until data saturation with 20 participants. Inductive content analysis was applied to interpret data using MAXQDA 2018 software. Results: The views of hospitalized patients with cancer regarding the nutritional complications were explored in four main themes, including "Inefficiency in patient food management”, “The need for care and support of the treatment team”, “Problems due to the consequences of the disease”, “Patients' strategies in conditions of dissatisfaction with the hospital food environment”. The sub-themes included "Dissatisfaction with the hospital food environment”, “Neglect of patients' specific conditions”, “Problem with the characteristics of hospital food”, “Uncertainty of the responsible person/people”, “Lack of continuous communication between the treatment team and patients”, “Patients’ need to consult with the treatment team”, “Patients’ concerns”, “Disease side-effects”, “Chemotherapy side effect”, and “Dissatisfaction of food and environment". Conclusion: It is necessary to obtain a comprehensive understanding of patients' needs by a treatment team, including physicians, nurses, and nutritionists by establishing appropriate communication with the patients and nutrition education from the time of diagnosis and treatment

Background: Traffic Light Labeling (TLL) system is a simple tool to communicate information regarding the nutrients content of food products and has been widely applied to promote public health. However, evidence on the effectiveness of the TLL system on consumers’ choices is conflicting. The present study aims to systematically summarize the effects of TLL on consumers’ point of purchase behaviors. Methods: Five electronic databases, including PubMed/Medline, Scopus, Web of knowledge, the Cochrane library, and Science direct were searched from 2000/01/01 to 2021/11/01. Randomized-controlled trials, in English or Farsi languages, investigating the effects of TLL on choosing healthier foodstuffs or beverages were examined for eligibility and included in the review. Of 6408 potentially relevant publications (including 1255 duplicates), five clinical trials were finally included in the study. Results: The duration of the interventions ranged from 4 to 12 weeks and all studies except one had high methodological quality. Out of 5, three clinical trials did not show positive effects of TLL on customers' choices to purchase healthier food products. Conclusions: The present review showed that TLL without other public health-promoting interventions may have no substantial effects on consumer’s food choice.

Background: The development of policies for increasing fruit and vegetable consumption is highlighted as a priority in developing countries. This review study aimed to present the available policy options for increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in the populations. Methods: To collect relevant English publications, five electronic databases, including PubMed/Medline, Scopus, Embase, ProQuest, and Ovid from 2000 until 1st January 2021 were searched. The national or population based programs aimed to increase fruit and/or vegetable intake were included. Four types of policy options were recognized, including food promotion, school and workplace food environment regulations, agriculture, food production, supply and storage, and fiscal policies. Results: Increasing consumer’s knowledge has been more effective in increasing fruit and vegetable consumption among populations. However, most of the interventions in the workplace and school emphasize increasing knowledge and changing access to healthy food. Conclusion: In general, the evaluation of these policies has been done in the short term and has had a moderate impact on changing dietary behavior. Agricultural and food supply chain policies are currently less researched. Finally, recent evidence suggests that multi-component interventions are more effective than one-component interventions.

Considering the incidence of malnutrition, a multidisciplinary approach with targeted nutrition is vital to improve the quality of care in cancer patients. This study aimed to investigate the overall nutritional status of Iranian cancer patients. Methods: This cross-sectional study in 70 cancer patients was conducted in Shohada-e Tajrish Hospital from February to April 2019. The cancer patients were assessed by demographics and Scored Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) utilized as a common tool to evaluate the nutritional status of patients with different types of cancer. Results: Overall, 20.0% and 70.0% of the patients had normal body mass index (BMI) and overweight/obese, respectively. Moreover, 30.0% and 60.0% of the participants reported poor and normal intake, respectively. Males were more affected by malnutrition. Approximately 8.0% of the participants lost more than 10.0% of their weight; however, a vast majority of the patients maintained their weight. Conclusion: The high prevalence of malnutrition among the studied cancer patients demonstrated the necessity of nutritional care to improve possible malnutrition for better treatment results.

Abstract Background Todays, due to the impact of human food choices on increasing greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and environmental degradation, there is a new approach about changing the pattern of food production and consumption, including sustainable food and nutrition system related to consumption. This study aimed to explore the components of a sustainable diet among the factors that affect people’s food choices. Methods This qualitative study was carried out using an in-depth interview with 33 individuals aged 30–64 years old living in different areas of Tehran. Data collection, data analysis and theoretical conceptualization were performed simultaneously. MAXQDA 10 software was used for managing and organizing the data. Results In this paper, the findings are categorized according to the key components of a sustainable diet in five themes: “Health and Nutrition”, “Food and Agriculture Security”, “Environment and Ecosystems”, “Markets, food trade and production chains”, “social, cultural, and policy factors” were categorized. Meanwhile, the components of the “Health and Nutrition” domain had the highest contribution and the components of the two domains “food and agriculture” and “environment and ecosystems” had the lowest role based on the participants’ perception in this study. Conclusion Considering to the low importance of the components of a sustainable diet in food choices of the community, promoting the individual awareness of sustainable diet components, clarifying the importance of food choices in creating environmental impacts and leading the national macro policies in the field food and nutrition toward sustainable diet goals are essential.

Background and Objective: Food choice similar to other human behaviors is influenced by various factors. Along with biological and physiological determinants, various factors may affect food choice including individual, environmental, cultural, social and behavioral factors. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to review the determinants of food choice especially in reference to socio-cultural factors. Materials and Methods: This review study was conducted based on articles published from 1995 to 2017. Firstly, search was conducted by keywords in PubMed, Google scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, SID, Irandoc, Magiran and health science databases to find full text or abstract of publications. The initial search key words were "food choice" and "determinants", which were later refined by searching for particular terms like "culture" and "social". Finally, 22 articles including 6 quantitative articles and 16 qualitative articles in Persian and English were selected. Results: The concepts extracted as food choice determinants included nutritional self-effectiveness; media; socio-economic factors; social contexts; literacy; family dimension; social inequality; occupation; taste; ease of access; habits; food preferences; knowledge; friends, peers and parents influences; parental education; cooking skills; nutritional quality; life course; ideals; resources; food abstinence; past experiences; health; ethnicity customs; time; enjoyable experiences from foods; and satiety. Conclusion: Adding up studies showed the importance of socio-cultural variables as food choice determinants among different groups to design and implement interventions to modify the eating behaviors. Thus, it is necessary to carry out research on the basis of socio-cultural factors for food programming.

Background: Healthy lifestyle is effective on preventing common elderly diseases. This study was conducted to evaluate the elderlies' lifestyle and its components in Tehran in 2017. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out with a descriptive-analytical design. The research population consisted of 200 elderly people from elderly care centers in Tehran City, Iran. A questionnaire, designed and validated by Babak et al., was used for lifestyle assessment. It dealt with dimensions of prevention, physical activity, exercise and entertainment, nutrition, stress management, as well as social and interpersonal relationships. Results: Results showed that the total score of lifestyle was 167.83 and 164.18 in men and women, respectively. Findings indicated that both genders were in good level of lifestyle and was no significant difference was observed between males and females (P < 0.05). A significant difference was observed between men and women in terms of stress and prevention components. The highest mean score of lifestyle was observed in prevention component of the participants who had associate degree (64.99 ± 5.89) and were single (60.75 ± 5.50). The lowest mean score of lifestyle was found in the field of exercise and entertainment in people who had elementary education degree (12.94 ± 4.12) and were divorced (13.00 ± 3.00). A significant relationship was found between age and nutritional area (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Considering the low scores of exercise and entertainment in the elderly people, an educational program should be designed to improve lifestyle among the elderly.

Abstract Background and objectives Women’s food choices and preferences are important as key decision-makers in household food handling, especially the selection of local and traditional foods that can potentially affect health and disease profile. Therefore, this study aimed to understand the barriers and facilitators of choosing local and traditional foods from the perspective of women living in Iran. Methods This qualitative study was carried out using a semi-structured in-depth interview with 22 women aged 30–64 years old in Tehran (capital of Iran). The participants were recruited through purposive sampling with the maximum variation such as occupation, the district of residence, and education. Data collection and analysis were done simultaneously from the beginning of the study using the MAXQDA 10 software. Results and conclusions The four main themes explored from the participants’ statements included: “cultural contexts,” “social barriers and motivations,” “convenience, accessibility, and skills,” and “religious considerations.” The lessons derived from family, experiences, beliefs, ethnicity patterns, influences from traditional medicine, and priorities in a lifetime, family preferences, routine complications, facilities and ingredients, cookery skills, and religious rules and occasions were extracted as sub-themes including the barriers and facilitators of local and traditional foods in women. Considering the diversity of local and traditional foods in Iranian culture, encouraging the varied consumption of these foods could contribute to the sustainability of diet in communities. Therefore, emphasizing the special role of Iranian women in the household, it is necessary to educate women in order to regenerate the local and traditional food patterns in our country.

Background: Food security status is an important indicator for measuring the level of individuals' access to sufficient and nutritious food. This study was conducted to investigating the food security status in pregnant women in Yazd, Iran. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 351 pregnant women with gestational age of 24 to 32 weeks were randomly selected. Food security status was measured by household food insecurity access scale (HAFIS) questionnaire. Demographic information was extracted from the health records of mothers. The data were analyzed using logistic regression test. Results: The mean age of studied women was 27.84 ± 5.46 years and the mean of their food security score was 3.45 ± 4.40. Food secure, marginal insecurity, and severe insecurity were observed in 45.6, 39, and 15.4 percent of participants, respectively. Socioeconomic status (SES) and non-Persian ethnicity had a significant relationship (P = 0.40) with food insecurity. Logistic regression analysis showed that the odds ratio of severe food insecurity in the low SES was 13 times higher than its odds in the high SES. The odds ratio of severe food insecurity for non-Persian was also 6 times higher than its odds for Persian people. Conclusion: More than half of the pregnant women were in the mild to severe range of food insecurity and the prevalence of this situation was higher in women with low social economic status and non-native groups.

Background: Imbalanced diet, as it may cause micronutrient malnutrition has been known as a causal factor for several chronic diseases. Several studies in Iran have shown that some micro-nutrient deficiencies are prevalent and of high concern. Minerals such as calcium and iron can supply physical and mental health as well as survival, and growth development. In this study, Nutrient density analysis was used to display Iranian households' diet quality. Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, the diet quality of seven provinces, namely Eastern Azarbaijan, Isfahan, Tehran, Khorasan, Khouzestan, Sistan Balochestan and Fars was assessed in terms of calcium and iron. To do so, the data were obtained through national household food consumption survey conducted by National Nutrition & Food Technology Research Institute, 2000-02, in Iran. Results: Generally, 80% of households' calcium density was less than the standard value and this rate was 40-70% for iron. Index of nutrition quality (INQ) for calcium and iron were respectively almost 1/2 and 1/3 of requirements in all provinces. Conclusions: There were significant differences in calcium intake density between the rural and urban households however; there were no differences between the selective provinces and all over the country