Data from the large multinational Prospective, Urban Rural Epidemiological Study (PURE study) just published online in the American Journal Diabetes Care, confirms an association between excess white rice intake with incident type 2 diabetes.

Commenting on the results, Dr. Bhavadharini Balaji, first author of the paper, said that, "This is the largest study on white rice intake and incident diabetes ever done. It is also one of the first to be done across different countries and confirms that white rice intake is one of the contributors to the diabetes epidemic in South Asia".

Dr. V. Mohan, the second author of the paper, who conceived the study, added, "We have earlier shown in the Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiological study (CURES study) that there was an association of white rice intake with prevalent diabetes. Further follow up of the CURES study over 10 years showed that excess white rice consumption was also associated with new-onset (incident) diabetes in South India, particularly in Chennai. However, this study adds to the evidence because it was conducted on much larger sample size, (n=132,2371 participants) across 21 countries and with a longer period of follow up.
Sales of white rice have risen sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic because rice is cheap.