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Brown Rice vs. White Rice: Which Is Better?
WebMD Health News ^ | Monday, June 14, 2010 | Bill Hendrick

Posted on 06/14/2010 5:40:04 PM PDT by Willie Green

Replacing White Rice With Brown Rice Reduces Risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Study Finds

June 14, 2010 -- Replacing white rice in your diet with brown rice may reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a new study.

The finding is important because the consumption of white rice in the United States has increased dramatically in the past few decades, and about 18 million Americans have type 2 diabetes.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health say eating two or more servings of brown rice weekly seems to be associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. On the other hand, they report, eating five or more servings of white rice per week is associated with an increased risk.

Qi Sun, MD, now an instructor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues at Harvard estimate that replacing 50 grams daily of white rice (uncooked, equivalent to a one-third serving) with the same amount of brown rice would lower the risk of type 2 diabetes by 16%.

Replacing the same amount of white rice with other whole grains, such as barley and wheat, is associated with a 36% reduced risk.

The study is published in the online journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

The researchers say the study is the first to specifically examine white rice vs. brown rice in relation to development of type2 diabetes among Americans.

“Rice consumption in the U.S. has dramatically increased in recent decades,” Sun says in a news release. “We believe replacing white rice and other refined grains with whole grains, including brown rice, would lower the risk of type 2 diabetes.”

White rice is created by removing the bran and germ portions of brown rice. The authors say that more than 70% of rice eaten in the U.S. is white. Brown Rice Reduces Diabetes Risk

The scientists examined rice consumption and diabetes risk in 39,765 men and 157,463 women in three large studies -- the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study and the Nurses’ Health Study I and II.

They analyzed responses to questionnaires completed every four years about diet, lifestyle, and health conditions.

After adjusting for age and other lifestyle and dietary risk factors, people who consumed five or more servings of white rice per week had a 17% increased risk of diabetes, compared to people who ate less than one serving per month.

But eating two or more servings of brown rice per week was associated with an 11% reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes, compared to eating less than one serving of brown rice per month.

White rice has a higher glycemic index than brown rice, the researchers say. That index is a measure of how fast a particular food raises blood glucose levels, compared with the same amount of glucose.

“The high glycemic index of white rice consumption is likely the consequence of disrupting the physical and botanical structure of rice grains during the refining process,” the authors write. “The other consequence of the refining process includes loss of fiber, vitamins, magnesium and other minerals, lignans, phytoestrogens, and phytic acid, many of which may be protective factors for diabetes risk.”

They recommend replacing white rice and other refined grains with brown rice to try to prevent type 2 diabetes.

Brown rice, the researchers say, often does not generate as fast an increase in blood sugar levels after a meal.

Whole Grains Recommended

The study also reports that:

* The biggest eaters of white rice were less likely to have European ancestry or to smoke, and more likely to have a family history of diabetes.
* Eating brown rice was not associated with ethnicity, but with a more health-conscious diet and lifestyle.
* Brown rice consumption was low in the study population.

The U.S. government’s release of the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans identifies grains, including rice, as one of the primary sources of carbohydrates and recommends that at least half of grain servings come from whole grains.

“From a public health point of view, whole grains, rather than refined carbohydrates such as white rice, should be recommended as the primary source of carbohydrates” for people in the United States, Frank Hu, MD, PhD, of Harvard, says in a news release.

Samantha Heller, MS, RD, former head of the New York University Langone Medical Center’s Outpatient Cardiac Rehabilitation and Prevention Program and a spokeswoman for Diabetes Restaurant Month, an educational program sponsored by Merck, says in a news release that refined grains “can wreak havoc with blood sugar levels and energy” and increase the risk not only for type 2 diabetes but for obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and other health problems.


TOPICS: Food; Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: brownrice; busmati; diabetes; diet; dreamfields; nutrition; pasta; rice; type2diabetes
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To: Little Ray
Brown rice, duh.
And it has a better flavor - sort of a nutty flavor.

Yeah, I always preferred the long grain brown and wild rice more than the white stuff anyway.

Apparently I didn't eat enough of it to avoid getting diabetes,
but now that I have to be more careful with my diet, it's nice knowing that the brown is better for me than the white, even though I can't eat very much of either one anyway.

21 posted on 06/14/2010 5:58:54 PM PDT by Willie Green ("Some people march to the beat of a different drum - and some people polka. ..")
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To: Willie Green

Same with eggs ... white or brown ... different hens, same egg.


22 posted on 06/14/2010 6:01:09 PM PDT by SkyDancer (Those That Turn Their Swords into Plows Will Plow For Those That Don't.)
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To: Willie Green

I vote for white rice, the thick clumpy kind, not the thin grain thai rice.


23 posted on 06/14/2010 6:01:50 PM PDT by gunsequalfreedom (Conservative is not a label of convenience.)
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To: Willie Green

ps ... don’t laugh but down here we see pink, blue and green eggs ....it’s the chickens (chucks as they’re called) what they eat ...


24 posted on 06/14/2010 6:02:17 PM PDT by SkyDancer (Those That Turn Their Swords into Plows Will Plow For Those That Don't.)
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To: Willie Green

Define “better.”

If you’re looking for long term storage, brown rice is inferior to white rice. It can go rancid after six months to a year. White can keep almost indefinitely given proper storage.


25 posted on 06/14/2010 6:03:08 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Tamar1973

Diabetes is rampant in Asia!


26 posted on 06/14/2010 6:03:22 PM PDT by mylife
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To: Willie Green

It ain’t the rice - its the bread. Soft, sweet, white bread, that tastes almost like cake. Especially Sunbeam bread.

Or at least, I suspect that’s how I made it to type II...


27 posted on 06/14/2010 6:03:28 PM PDT by Little Ray (The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!)
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To: refermech
I’ll stick with my coffee and toast with real butter...

Add boysenberry preserves with that and I'll be over for breakfast!

(Next question from all the east coast FReepers will be, "What's a boysenberry?")

28 posted on 06/14/2010 6:03:37 PM PDT by gunsequalfreedom (Conservative is not a label of convenience.)
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To: Castigar
don’t Asians eat A LOT of white rice?

Yes but it makes their eye lashes fall out and turns them into techno nerds..........

29 posted on 06/14/2010 6:04:38 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (Peanut butter was just peanut butter until I found Free Republic.........)
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To: plinyelder

Saffron is yellow. The rice is white.


30 posted on 06/14/2010 6:05:42 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: mylife

But rice is not the cause methinks .


31 posted on 06/14/2010 6:05:46 PM PDT by sushiman (1)
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To: darkangel82
I like brown rice.

You made a typo. I think you meant to say, I like brownies. Right. I mean, really, they are better than rice.

32 posted on 06/14/2010 6:05:48 PM PDT by gunsequalfreedom (Conservative is not a label of convenience.)
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To: Willie Green; 3D-JOY; 50mm; AGreatPer; calcowgirl; cindy-true-supporter; concretebob; Disco Dave; ..
Brown Rice vs. White Rice: Which Is Better?

Me.

32½ posted on 06/14/2010 8:58:07 PM EDT by Condi Rice

To: 3D-Joy; 50mm; AGreatPer; calcowgirl; cindyTrueSupporter; concretebob; Disco Dave; Doctor Raoul; ...
ping!

If you want off my ping list get over it!


33 posted on 06/14/2010 6:06:29 PM PDT by BufordP (Once a Marine - always a Marine ... Until Jack Murtha.)
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To: SkyDancer
ps ... don’t laugh but down here we see pink, blue and green eggs ....it’s the chickens (chucks as they’re called) what they eat ...

"chucks"???

Do "chucks" have long, floppy ears...
a big fluffy cottontail...
and lay their colored eggs early in the spring?

34 posted on 06/14/2010 6:07:43 PM PDT by Willie Green ("Some people march to the beat of a different drum - and some people polka. ..")
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To: Willie Green

Here in Australia the nickname given to chickens is ‘chucks’ because of the sound they make .... chuck chuck chuck as they dig around the paddocks .... the border collies go and round them up when you yell ‘chucks’ ....


35 posted on 06/14/2010 6:10:33 PM PDT by SkyDancer (Those That Turn Their Swords into Plows Will Plow For Those That Don't.)
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To: SkyDancer

You know these Yukon eggs of ours some pink some green some blue
A dollar per assorted tints assorted flavors too
The supercilious cheechako might designate them high
But one acquires a taste for them and likes them by and by

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/hank-snow/ballad-of-hard-luck-henry.html


36 posted on 06/14/2010 6:11:03 PM PDT by Roccus (......and then there were none.)
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To: sushiman

I was joking


37 posted on 06/14/2010 6:11:06 PM PDT by mylife
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To: Riverine
The brown and brown with wild rice are good also.

..

38 posted on 06/14/2010 6:11:55 PM PDT by deport
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To: gunsequalfreedom

I have a pan of brownies in the kitchen right now, actually. :P


39 posted on 06/14/2010 6:13:23 PM PDT by darkangel82 (I don't have a superiority complex, I'm just better than you.)
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To: Roccus

The local ‘marts’ sell the standard whites but farms sell range eggs ... who knows what those chucks get into but the eggs sure are colorful .....


40 posted on 06/14/2010 6:17:12 PM PDT by SkyDancer (Those That Turn Their Swords into Plows Will Plow For Those That Don't.)
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