Nutrition

Do the advantages of brown rice outweigh the disadvantages of arsenic?

Are there any unique benefits to brown rice that would justify keeping it despite the arsenic in our diet?

There were warnings for years given on the arsenic content in US rice, which may increase the risk of cancer but was only put to the test in a Harvard study. The discovery, the knowledge, the find? “Long-term consumption of whole rice, white rice, or brown rice[,] was not associated with the risk of developing cancer in men and women in the United States. “This was heralded as good news. Even people who eat five or more servings of rice per week were not found to be at increased risk of cancer. But wait a minute: brown rice is a whole grain, a whole plant-based food. Shouldn’t brown rice be protective and not just neutral? I discuss this in my video Do the benefits of brown rice outweigh the disadvantages of arsenic?.

If you appearance In the case of whole grain products, there is generally a “significant inverse” or protective “relationship between total whole grain intake and the risk of death from total cancer”, ie death from cancer. My daily recommendation of at least three servings of whole grains a day was linked to a 10 percent lower risk of dying from cancer, a 25 percent lower risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke, and a 17 percent lower risk of dying prematurely the board while rice consumption was generally not connected with with mortality and wasn’t found protect against heart disease or strokes. Perhaps this lack of protection means that the arsenic is in rice increasingly Risk of disease, so much so that some of the benefits of whole brown rice are negated.

Consumer reports have suggested mitigating the intake of even brown rice. However, given the arsenic problem, is there any reason we should make an effort to keep rice in our diet at all? With all of the other whole grain options, should we just skip the rice entirely? Or are there some unique benefits we can get from rice that would justify continuing to eat it even though it contains ten times more arsenic than other grains?

A study shown that “a vegan brown rice-based diet” outperforms the Diabetes Association’s conventional diet, even after accounting for the extra belly fat that subjects lost on the vegan diet, but this may be more due to the plant-based nature of their diet be based as just like brown rice.

Another study found A profound improvement in insulin levels after just five days on brown rice compared to white rice. But was it just because the white rice made people worse? No, the brown rice made things better on its own, but the study was done with a South Indian population who initially ate a lot of white rice, so this may actually have been at least partially a substitution effect. And another study shown The instruction to eat a cup of brown rice a day “could significantly reduce weight, waist and hips, BMI, diastolic blood pressure and inflammation” – and not just because it was compared to white. A bigger, longer study failed seeing much more than a blood pressure benefit that was almost as impressive in the white rice group, so overall not too much to write home about.

Then another study rolled around-probably the most important single study on the pro-rice side– –shows significant improvement in artery function after eight weeks of eating over a daily cup of brown rice, but don’t know how you can see in mine at 3:18 Videoand sometimes even acute. Giving someone a meal containing saturated fat and white rice can experience a decline in arterial function within an hour of consuming it if you have metabolic disorders related to obesity. However, giving brown rice instead of white rice appears to protect arterial function from the adverse effects of the meal. Okay, while brown rice shows benefits in interventional studies, the question is, does it show any unique benefits? What about oatmeal or whole wheat instead?

Well, the researchers had to first design an artery-crippling meal, high in saturated fat. They went with a Haagen Daaz, coconut cream, and egg milk shake given with a bowl of oatmeal, or “a comparable bowl of whole wheat”. What do you think happened Do you think these whole grains blocked the arterial damaging effects like brown rice did? All of the oats worked, but all of the wheat didn’t. So one could argue that brown rice might have an advantage over whole wheat. Do oats also have the long-term positive effects that brown rice had? The advantage was of similar order of magnitude, but did not reach statistical significance.

So what’s the bottom line? Until we know more, currently I think that if you really like rice, you can reduce your risk by reducing it, choosing varieties with lower arsenic content, and cooking it in such a way that exposure is reduced even further. But if you are just as fond of other whole grains and you don’t care if you have rice versus quinoa or another grain, I would go with the lower arsenic option.

Tada! Done with arsenic in the food supply – for now. Should the situation change, I’ll produce another video with the latest news. Make sure you do drawn Don’t miss any updates.

Here are all 13 videos in the series, in case you missed one or want to go back and check it out:

And you might be interested Benefits of turmeric for arsenic exposure.

In health,

Michael Greger, MD

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