In Guyana, the amount of arsenic in rice could be risky for people's health over time, but in Chile, the levels are low enough that they probably don’t pose a health problem.

Eating rice might increase cancer risk in people from Guyana and Chile because of arsenic in the rice — especially in Guyana, where the risk is high enough to be a real concern.

Rice from Guyana has more arsenic than rice from Chile, and that might mean people eating it could face higher health risks.

If you eat a lot of rice and wheat and cook with water that has arsenic in it, computer models suggest you might be over 80 times more likely to get cancer than the average person in the U.S.—but this is just a prediction, not something scientists have actually seen happen yet.