Rice Consumption and Hypertension

Arsenic in the drinking water is the cause of hypertension. Studies claiming this finding included peoples in Bangladesh, Inner Mongolia, China and Taiwan. Rice consumption could include ingestion of natural arsenic from the environment. A study in Bangladesh confirmed this fact, because groundwater contaminated with environmental arsenic is used widely for the cultivation of the main food crop, rice. It was found that the greater the aggregate arsenic intake, the greater the occurrence of hypertension. The United States Food and Drug Administration informs that unlike other food grains, rice grains pick up arsenic from the soil and water. We are informed that people excrete the inorganic arsenic and the mono and di-methylated metabolites in the urine. The particular reference also informed that ingested arsenic in fish is excreted in two days. It is argued in this work that for Asians and others who consume rice daily, there is always some level of arsenic in body. Hence, a link is deduced between daily rice consumption and incremental rise in blood pressure, which may or may not lead to hypertension.