Scientists from McMaster University confirmed the association of white rice with the risk of diabetes.
The research is published in Diabetes Care and was conducted by Balaji Bhavadharini et al.
Previous studies on the association of white rice intake with incident diabetes have shown contradictory results.
In addition, they were conducted in single countries and predominantly in Asia.
In this study, the team used data on 132,373 individuals aged 35-70 years from 21 countries.
They categorized white rice consumption (cooked) as <150, ≥150 to <300, ≥300 to <450, and ≥450 g/day, based on one cup of cooked rice = 150 g.
The team found that during a follow-up period of 9.5 years, 6,129 individuals developed diabetes.
A higher intake of white rice (≥450 g/day compared with <150 g/day) was linked to an increased risk of diabetes.
However, the highest risk was mainly seen in South Asia, followed by other regions of the world (which included South East Asia, the Middle East, South America, North America, Europe, and Africa), while in China there was no strong association.
The team concluded that higher consumption of white rice is linked to an increased risk of diabetes.
The strongest association was observed in South Asia, while in other regions, a modest, nonsignificant association was found.
The current findings are in line with studies showing that concerning type 2 diabetes, the results are remarkably different between white (polished) rice and brown (unpolished) rice: the former increased and the latter decreased the risk.
This difference may partly be explained by the different types and amounts of dietary fiber and different scores of the dietary glycemic index.
Researchers suggest that the results on dietary fiber and dietary glycemic index were not consistent.
Simple and straightforward judgment on the effect of rice on type 2 diabetes should be avoided.
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