Can eating only rice and fruit lower blood pressure and weight?
Modern perspective of the Rice Diet for hypertension and other metabolic diseases
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
A long-ago diet made of mostly rice, fruit, and sugar helped people with very high blood pressure and obesity get much healthier — their blood pressure dropped a lot, they lost weight fast, and many lived longer.
Surprising Findings
People with the worst hypertension (SBP ≥180) still had a 71.6% 5-year survival rate—even though they were expected to die within months before the diet.
Before the Rice Diet, malignant hypertension had a median survival of just 6–18 months. This diet turned a death sentence into a 70%+ survival rate without drugs.
Practical Takeaways
Reduce sodium to under 500 mg/day for 2 weeks—cut processed foods, eat whole fruits, rice, and vegetables—to see if your blood pressure or weight improves.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
A long-ago diet made of mostly rice, fruit, and sugar helped people with very high blood pressure and obesity get much healthier — their blood pressure dropped a lot, they lost weight fast, and many lived longer.
Surprising Findings
People with the worst hypertension (SBP ≥180) still had a 71.6% 5-year survival rate—even though they were expected to die within months before the diet.
Before the Rice Diet, malignant hypertension had a median survival of just 6–18 months. This diet turned a death sentence into a 70%+ survival rate without drugs.
Practical Takeaways
Reduce sodium to under 500 mg/day for 2 weeks—cut processed foods, eat whole fruits, rice, and vegetables—to see if your blood pressure or weight improves.
Publication
Journal
BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health
Year
2024
Authors
Romeo Sommerfeld, Paul Ermler, Jana Fehr, Benjamin Bergner, D. Lopez, S. Sanoff, F. Neelon, A. Kuo, W. McDowell, Yi-Ju Li, Smilla Fox, Abdullatif Ghajar, Elena Gensch, Cedric Lorenz, Martin Preiss, T. Richter, F. Luft, P. Klemmer, A. Bohannon, Christoph Lippert, Pao-Hwa Lin
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Claims (7)
If someone with very high blood pressure eats almost no salt, lots of carbs, and very little fat or protein for about three months, their blood pressure might drop by nearly 45 points — this diet could really help people with dangerously high blood pressure.
Eating almost no salt—less than a pinch a day—while following the Rice Diet didn’t seem to make people with high or normal blood pressure die any sooner, and most of them lived at least five years. So maybe cutting salt this much is okay even for healthy people.
If someone with very high blood pressure eats almost no salt—less than a pinch a day—their blood pressure drops, and their heart and kidneys might even start healing.
People who ate only the Rice Diet for a while ended up peeing out almost no salt, which means they were eating almost no sodium at all—and they stuck to the diet really well.
People who ate only rice for a while lost weight—on average, their body mass index dropped by 4 points—no matter if they had high blood pressure or not, meaning it worked well even for those who were otherwise healthy.