Study finds brown rice reduces diabetes risk

Switching from white to brown can lower the chances of developing the disease by 16 per cent.

Replacing white rice with all kinds of whole grain foods – which include brown rice and wholemeal bread – was associated with a risk reduction as high as 36 per cent.

Brown rice contains the outer bran and germ portions of the grains which are stripped away to produce white rice.

More than 70 per cent of the rice consumed in developed countries such as the UK is white.

Brown rice takes longer to raise blood sugar levels than "high glycaemic" refined products.

Researchers led by Dr Qi Sun, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, analysed data from three large health studies involving almost 40,000 men and more than 157,000 women. After adjustments for various factors, people eating the equivalent of five or more 150 gram servings of white rice a week had a 17 per cent higher risk of non-insulin dependent diabetes than those eating less than one serving a month.

Those eating two or more servings of brown rice per week were 11 per cent less likely to develop diabetes than those eating less than one monthly serving.

The findings are published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.