BranFacts.com
"Your Online Rice Bran Reference Center"
Your Subtitle text
About Rice Bran
Perhaps the best summary of rice bran's potential comes from the 2004 Report of the United States Department of Agriculture's report, "Rice Bran: A Health-Promoting Ingredient".  The USDA stated, "Stabilized rice bran has been shown to possess cholesterol-lowering activity in hypercholesterolemic animals and human subjects." 

Rice bran's particular strength in reducing cholesterol and promoting overall health are in many cases due to the fact that it possesses an abundance of insoluble fiber, the most important component of "whole grain foods".  Rice Bran's potential with regard to alleviating the symptoms of specific diseases is detailed below:
Disease Effect of Rice Bran
High Cholesterol
 Reduced cholesterol, plaque and HDL in a human clinical trial and in mouse models.
Type II Diabetes
 Increased intake of whole grains and dietary fiber, such as that in rice bran, has been shown to reduce the risk of contracting diabetes by 59% in a survey of 40,000 US woman.
High Blood Pressure
 Reduced blood pressure by over 20% after eight weeks in mouse models.
Heart Disease and Stroke
 Increased intake of whole grain foods such as rice bran led to a 21% lower risk of cardiovascular disease in a survey of more than 285,000 people
Intestinal Cancer
 Reduced risk of cancer by over 50% in mouse models.

Rice bran is an all-natural byproduct of the rice milling process, and has been eaten as part of the rice kernel for thousands of years of human history (see the Cambridge World History of Food).

Rice bran must be stabilized (currently performed on a large scale only by NutraCea, Inc) before it is consumed, a process that consists of carefully heating, or "baking" and then later drying the bran before it is stored for human consumption.