While rice is the most consumed food across the world, it has many health benefits as well. From being a good source of energy to supporting heart health and aiding in digestion, rice is full of fibre, carbohydrates and has a lot of nutrients. Brown rice is a powerhouse of antioxidants, and despite that, experts are issuing warnings against consuming it.

Brown rice, which has more fibre than white rice, is great for Weight Watchers, but calling it overall healthier might be jumping the gun. According to a recent study by Michigan State research, brown rice has higher levels of arsenic—which includes the more toxic inorganic kind - than white rice. The levels may not be a major concern for most adults but could pose a serious risk of cancer among infants and young children—who eat more rice relative to their body weight and are more vulnerable to exposure.

According to the World Health Organisation, chronic exposure to arsenic over a lifetime increases the risk of skin, lung, bladder, and kidney cancers. “This research is important because it acknowledges the importance of considering food safety along with nutrition when consumers make choices about food,” said senior investigator of the study Professor Felicia Wu.

“While we found that choosing brown rice over white rice would result in higher arsenic exposure on average, the levels should not cause long-term health problems unless someone ate an enormous amount of brown rice every day for years.”

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element in the environment with rocks, soil, water, air, plants, and animals - all containing some level of it. Experts say arsenic combines with inorganic and organic substances to form many different compounds.

Arsenic poisoning occurs when you ingest or consume high levels of arsenic—both short- and long-term exposure. It can happen through contaminated groundwater, air, soil, or food. Arsenic poisoning occurs most often in major areas of agriculture and industrialisation.

Experts say that as compared to other cereal grains, rice contains significantly more arsenic, taking up nearly 10 times as much. And that is mostly due to how it is grown.

Rice is often cultivated in flooded paddies, and the wet conditions make it easier for arsenic in the soil to be absorbed by the plant. While the nutritional benefits of brown rice are well documented, white rice is still the more commonly eaten variety, both in the United States and across the world.

For the study, published in the journal Risk Analysis, Prof. Wu and lead author Christian Scott looked at how much arsenic people are exposed to from eating brown versus white rice in the US. They used dietary data from the “What We Eat in America” survey, plus figures from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and food safety institutes, to estimate average daily intake.

The results showed clear differences in arsenic levels between brown and white rice and revealed regional patterns, pointing to where health risks might be higher. The amount of inorganic arsenic - the more toxic kind - in rice varied significantly by region. For US-grown rice, researchers found that 33 per cent of total arsenic in white rice was inorganic, compared to 48 per cent in brown rice.

“This exposure assessment is only one side of the equation when examining the potential trade-offs between brown and white rice consumption,” said Prof. Wu.

“Even if arsenic levels are slightly higher in brown rice than white rice, more research is needed to demonstrate if the potential risks from this exposure are mitigated in part by the potential nutritional benefits provided by the rice bran,” she added.

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