White rice. brown rice. diabetes on the rise!

Rice is a staple around the world. In far east and most of Asia, rice is the major grain that is consumed. In the US, rice consumption is growing too. 20 billion pounds of rice is produced each year by farmers in Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi¹. Most of the rice produced in the US grown for local use and Americans consume about 25 pounds of rice each year¹.

The incidence of diabetes varies in different parts of the world because of lifestyle factors. Diet is a big part of pathogenesis of diabetes and we know from population studies that high fat, high calorie diet can cause the metabolism to be diabetogenic.

In the United States, there are 23.6 million people (7.8% of the population) with diabetes with 90% of them being type 2 diabetic. With prevalence rates doubling between 1990 and 2005, CDC has characterized the increase as an epidemic².

Does eating rice in any form cause diabetes to worsen? Or cause diabetes to develop in those predisposed? To answer this unusual question Qi Sun and colleagues conducted a trial to correlate white and brown rice consumption in relation to type 2 diabetes risk. This was published in nov 2010 issue of Archives of Int. Medicine.

Close to 40,000 males and 150,000 females (medical professionals, nursing staff) were studied prospectively for development of diabetes. People who ate five or more servings of white rice per week were associated with 17% higher incidence of diabetes as compared to one serving per month.

People who ate 2 servings of brown rice per week had 11% less incidence of diabetes as compared to people eating brown rice once a month.

The study design also allowed looking at effect of other whole grain. Bran in- take reduced incidence by a big amount, but germ intake did not affect the diabetes development as much.

Take home message, “substitute refined grains to whole, keep your blood sugar at goal!”

1. USA rice federation. http://www.usarice.com/doclib/157/3366.pdf
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus_type_2
3. White Rice, Brown Rice, and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in US Men and Women. Qi Sun, MD et al. Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(11):961-969