Research

Hormonal

High consumption of white rice (≥450 g/day) is associated with an increased risk of incident type 2 diabetes, with the strongest association observed in South Asian populations.

If you eat large amounts of white rice (more than 3 cups cooked per day), your risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases, especially if you are of South Asian descent. To reduce this risk without necessarily giving up rice, try switching to brown rice, choosing high-fiber white rice varieties, or adding legumes (beans, lentils) to your rice meals to lower the glycemic impact. Be aware that in China, this specific risk was not statistically significant, suggesting regional or varietal differences.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In the overall PURE cohort, after adjusting for lifestyle and dietary factors, higher consumption of white rice (≥450 vs. <150 g/day) was significantly associated with an increased risk of incident diabetes (HR 1.20; 95% CI 1.02–1.40; P for trend = 0.003). The subgroup analysis by regions showed that the association was most pronounced in South Asia (HR 1.61; 95% CI 1.13–2.30; P for trend = 0.02).
Balaji Bhavadharini et al. · Diabetes Care · 2020

Why this rating

Large multinational prospective cohort (n=132,373) with long follow-up (9.5 years) and multivariable adjustment, though observational design limits causal inference.

Source

White Rice Intake and Incident Diabetes: A Study of 132,373 Participants in 21 Countries

Balaji Bhavadharini et al. · Diabetes Care · 2020

DOI 10.2337/dc19-2335

cohort · n=132373Cited 143×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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