Asian women who eat rice at increased risk of diabetes

For Asian women, consumption of rice may heighten the risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D), a study has found.

This systematic review and meta-analysis included studies examining T2D risk and baseline rice intake. Researchers applied random-effects models to pool relative risks (RRs) and meta regression analyses to evaluate the influence of sex.

Six articles with eleven comparisons in Asian countries were included in the current meta-analysis. These studies contributed to a total of 12,395 incident T2D cases from 256,818 participants.

When comparing extreme categories of rice intake, the highest intake category was associated with a 25-percent increase in the risk of developing T2D. The corresponding pooled RR was 1.25 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.17–1.33), with high heterogeneity (I2, 88 percent; p<0.0001).

When stratified by sex, the association between T2D risk and rice intake was more pronounced among women (RR, 1.58, 95 percent CI, 1.26–1.99) than men (RR, 1.30, 95 percent CI, 0.85–1.98; p_interaction=0.42).

The mechanism by which increased rice consumption increases risk of type 2 diabetes, while unknown, may be related to the food item’s high glycaemic index, which reflects the effect of food intake on blood glucose concentrations and is a known predictor of T2D. Notably, white rice has been touted as less healthy due to its poor nutritional quality compared with other rice variants. This is because several beneficial nutrients, such as insoluble fibre and magnesium, which are potentially protective against T2D, are removed in the process of producing polished white rice. [Compr Rev Food Sci Food Saf 2019;18:1070-1096]