Original title: Grain Colour and Type as Determinants of Glycemic Response in Medicinal and Aromatic Rice Varieties of Kerala
The study compared the estimated glycemic index of medicinal and aromatic rice varieties from Kerala with Uma, a high-yielding rice. Glycemic index is an estimate of how quickly a food may raise blood sugar. The researchers found that colour alone did not predict this estimate: red Uma ranked higher than the white aromatic types, while Njavara Black ranked lowest. They point to amyloseA type of starch that the study identifies as relevant to glycemic response. and resistant starchStarch that resists digestion., a type of starch that resists digestion, as more important traits. Cooking reduced resistant starch in every rice tested.
Imagine choosing fruit at a market by its skin colour. The colour may catch your eye, but it does not tell you everything about what is inside. In this paper, rice colour is the skin, while traits such as amylose and resistant starch are the inner qualities linked more closely to the estimated blood-sugar effect.
People choosing rice for its colour may assume that colour predicts how it affects blood sugar. This study suggests that traits such as amylose and resistant starch matter more, though its lab estimates cannot show how people’s blood sugar responds after eating.
The glycemic index values come from an in vitro digestion model, so they are preliminary estimates, not direct evidence of people’s blood-sugar responses or a basis for diabetes diet advice. The authors call for testing more rice varieties, cooking and processing methods, and controlled in vivo and human post-meal responses.
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Grain Colour and Type as Determinants of Glycemic Response in Medicinal and Aromatic Rice Varieties of Kerala — Nadiya Fasiludeen, Anagha Sreeja Manikantan, Rajalakshmi Radhakrishnan — Cureus Journal of Agriculture and Food Science — doi:10.7759/s44497-026-00308-0
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.