I currently work for a company that makes glucose monitors for people with diabetes, but we (non-diabetic) employees sometimes get to try the products out.
As far as I'm aware, all the current medical literature states to avoid simple carbs (like white rice) to prevent insulin spikes, and to eat things like whole grain breads instead. But, we noticed that this seems to only be true for people of European descent - my Asian co-workers were able to process white rice just fine. Which kind of makes sense - East Asian people eat a ton of rice, and yet they're thin.
This is all purely anecdotal of course, and I'm not a doctor, but we do know that different ethnicities process food differently (e.g. lactose), and it's not so hard to imagine that our current dietary recommendations might be a bit skewed, because the people in the datasets are mostly of European ancestry.
I've read elsewhere that East Asians are more prone to diabetes than are other ethnicities. A quick google search for "east asian diabetes" yields links for higher risk, with diabetes occurring at lower BMI values. Also, the nature of diabetes type II appears to be different [2].
Genetic nutrition optimization is a really interesting topic related to this. There are many other differences related to our genetics that impact how we process food.
As far as I'm aware, all the current medical literature states to avoid simple carbs (like white rice) to prevent insulin spikes, and to eat things like whole grain breads instead. But, we noticed that this seems to only be true for people of European descent - my Asian co-workers were able to process white rice just fine. Which kind of makes sense - East Asian people eat a ton of rice, and yet they're thin.
This is all purely anecdotal of course, and I'm not a doctor, but we do know that different ethnicities process food differently (e.g. lactose), and it's not so hard to imagine that our current dietary recommendations might be a bit skewed, because the people in the datasets are mostly of European ancestry.