Can rice bran oil lower your 'bad' LDL cholesterol? See the articles based on studies, Can Rice Bran Oil Melt Away Cholesterol? and Rice bran oil, not fiber, lowers cholesterol in humans1–3. The study showed that it's the rice bran oil, and not the fiber, that lowers blood lipids (fats) in men and women with borderline high total cholesterol. This particular study confirmed previous findings of the total and LDLcholesterol–lowering effects of rice bran oil in humans. That 2005 study is published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2005;81:64–8.
See the Healthy Heart Guide website, Rice Bran Oil. The article there reports that "rice bran oil can have a significant effect on cholesterol and triglyceride (fat) levels, and as such could improve and maintain heart health and cardiovascular strength."
According to that site, "rice bran is the outer grain hull of rice, and it contains fiber, lipids, amino acids as well as a variety of vitamins and minerals. Although whole rice bran does have anti-cholesterol properties, it is the oil which most likely offers the most significant benefits."
Rice bran oil contains important chemicals such as beta sitosterol that can reduce the absorption of cholesterol, and alpha linoleic acid that can increase essential fatty acid concentration. Other constituents of rice bran oil can help lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the body.
Also see the study, Effect of plant sterols from rice bran oil and triterpene alcohols, and check out the forum postings on the website, Rice bran oil disolves aluminium. Is it unsafe? - General. Additionally, check out the difference between cold-filtered and cold pressed oil at the site, WildHealthFood.com - Rice Bran Oil.
By matching the fatty acids of the rice bran oil with a control oil blend, scientists showed that the effect of rice bran oil on serum cholesterol concentrations is due to the unsaponifiables present in it and not to its fatty acid profile. Rice bran oil that contains the compounds studied in that research could become an important
functional food with cardiovascular health benefits. Unsaponifiables are components of an oily (oil, fat, wax) mixture that fail to form soaps when blended with lye.
In the Sacramento area, UC Davis also studies the health benefits and production of rice bran oil, rice bran, and whole-grain brown rice.The University of California Cooperative and Extension (UCCE) Rice Project is an interdisciplinary collaboration that fosters research in rice production management and facilitates the exchange of information and the development and spread of promising technologies.The project studies rice production in California, especially in the Sacramento area.
Around 40 studies of the health benefits of rice bran oil are listed the Rice Bran Oil Information site. Click on the Cholesterol-Lowering by Rice Bran study. It concludes that components of rice bran have cholesterol-lowering activity. However, the study was done on hamsters. Rice bran itself, also lowers cholesterol.
It’s the rice bran oil’s oryzanol and tocotrienol. Rice bran oil reduces the harmful cholesterol (LDL) without reducing good cholesterol (HDL). The many studies of rice bran oil found that the oil’s key element, oryzanol is responsible for lowering LDL cholesterol. And it smells good when heated in a frying pan.
Tocotrienol, found in natural vitamin E with its eight elements such as alpha, gamma, delta, to name a few, is said to be the most powerful vitamin E component existing in nature. Some studies tout its anti-cancer effect. Rice bran oil is rich in the alpha tocopherol part of vitamin-E source, and also contains the highest amount of tocotrienol found in liquid form vegetable oils. Also listen to an audio recording on the health benefits of rice bran, for example, in addition to rice bran oil. The recording is on the Wide World of Health 04/18 Hr 1.
According to the April 1, 2008 article by Laura Crowley, "Rice bran offers health benefits over wheat flour," if you buy stabilized rice bran (SRB), it's healthier than using wheat flour. Stabilized rice bran cuts fats, calories, salt content, according to the latest studies. Also, some people don't want gluten in their grain products.
See the site, Rice Quality. Sacramento nutritionists want to let Sacramento consumers know about the UC Davis Rice Project and the Rice Workgroup. Also rice has come back again as folkloric medicine in the sense that it is again being used to help lower high blood pressure.
Read the published scientific study, Pins JJ, et al. "Do Whole Grain oat cereals reduce the need for antihypertensive medications and improve blood pressure control? Journal of Family Practice 51: 353-359, 2002.
For example, check out the excellent book, Reversing Hypertension, by Julian Whitaker, M.D. On page 145, of the chapter on "The Quick Start Diet for High Blood Pressure," breakfast suggested in part includes blueberries and brown rice.
If you need to sweeten, the book suggests using a little stevia. Rice had been the remedy of choice to treat high blood pressure in the 1940s.
At the UC Davis site, see Rice Statistics - Rice acreage and production in the U.S. and California, cost of production. For example, what is rice straw used for, and what are some new uses? Nothing goes to waste. See, Feeding Rice Straw to Cattle. Also see, 
Straw Management.
Also see at the UC Davis site, new uses of rice straw, Rice Straw Products Resource List. There are also more Sources of Rice Straw and information on the The Rice Straw Market. What about local Rice Quality? In other countries, some people get 40 percent of their calories from rice. Don't train your children to eat only white rice just because that was what was given to you in your own childhood.
Parents have a lot to do with training children to eat brown or white rice, depending upon what was served to children after age two. If children grow up eating white rice, they, in turn, will serve the same to their children, in future generations.
By the age of three or four, the diet preferences are set so that when your child reaches elementary school age, a child fed white rice topped with butter, for example, will not easily eat brown rice or other healthy grains, such as whole oat groats, quinoa, millet, teff, rye berries, or amaranth, without complaining.
What has happened is that the child is now addicted to what's familiar, and eating white rice automatically has become an imprinted habit in the child's brain that's going to be hard to break. It will be a contest of wills, the child's demand for the familiar white rice over your coaxing for variety.
How you break the white rice habit is by getting your three-year old to make raw foods using a variety of cooked grains such as brown rice. Get a dehydrator.
Have the child mix small amounts of various meals such as ground almond meal, oat bran, or flax seed meal with fruit and nuts--sunflower seeds (shelled), chopped walnuts, pecans, or almonds, or make rice pudding using brown rice and grated carrots. Introduce a child to whole grains around the age of three when the child will learn to do simple no-heat raw foods cooking to make cookies from various grains, seeds, dried fruits, and nuts or nut butters.
Make faces on cookies or other food as fun projects that the child can eat. There's an epidemic in society of restaurants and fast-food eateries serving vegetarian or meat dishes with enormous portion sizes of cooked white rice instead of the more nutritious brown rice. Most people are not aware of the nutritional differences are between brown and white rice. Which is higher on the glycemic index?
White rice turns to starch and then into sugar in the body faster than brown rice, with it's vitamin B nutrients still in the rice. But it's interesting to note that white rice has 5.0 grams of protein, compared to only 4.5 grams of protein in white rice.
What's the Nutritional Value of Rice?
According to the article at the Rice Diet Facts FAQ site, rice is a high-carbohydrate food with 85percent of the energy from carbohydrate, 7 percent from fat , and 8 percent from protein . However, rice also has a considerable amount of protein, with an excellent spectrum of amino acids . The protein quality of rice (66%) is higher than that of whole wheat (53%) or corn (49%). Of the small amount of fat in brown rice, much is polyunsaturated . White rice is extremely low in fat content.
A cup of cooked rice has approximately 5 grams of protein, which is sufficient for growth and maintenance, provided that a person receives adequate calories to maintain body weight or to increase it, if full growth has not yet occurred.
Asiatic children for whom rice is the chief food source have not developed protein deficiency disorders such as kwashiorkor , as have infants that are fed corn or cassava as a chief staple after weaning. Growth and development are normal on a rice diet . Due to its easy digestibility, rice is a good transition food after the cessation of breast or formula feeding.
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