London, June 15: Switching from white rice to brown rice and wholemeal bread could significantly reduce the chances of developing diabetes by 30 percent, a study has found.
According to Harvard researchers in Archives of Internal Medicine, white rice poses a diabetes threat by rising body’s blood sugar levels dramatically far more than brown rice.
The latest findings indicate that replacing 50 grams of white rice per day with brown rice would lead to a 16 percent lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
And replacing the whole white rice eaten per day with wholegrains, including brown rice and pasta, wholemeal bread and rolled oats, could cut the risk by more than a third.
The study insists that brown rice and other wholegrain foods release glucose more gradually than the white rice and are a healthier option in daily diet of people.
About 2 million people in Iran have type 2 diabetes and numbers are rising as the white rice is counted as the main meal of Iranians.
—Agencies