It doesn’t look like eating rice, even white rice, increases one’s risk for heart disease. That was the finding of this big, recent prospective study:

Rice Consumption Is Not Associated With Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease Morbidity Or Mortality In Japanese Men And Women: A Large Population-based, Prospective Cohort Study, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 2014

Over 91,000 adults took part. Follow-up was ~18 years. Consumption was broken down into 5 categories. Those who ate the most rice had no greater risk for stroke, heart attack, or death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) than those who ate the least. It didn’t even matter if someone was overweight:

Rice consumption was not associated with risk of incident stroke or IHD; the multivariable HR (95% CI) in the highest compared with lowest rice consumption quintiles was 1.01 (0.90, 1.14) for total stroke and 1.08 (0.84, 1.38) for IHD. Similarly, there was no association between rice consumption and risk of mortality from CVD; the HR (95% CI) for mortality from total CVD was 0.97 (0.84, 1.13). There were no interactions with sex or effect modifications by body mass index for any endpoint.

Conclusion: Rice consumption is not associated with risk of CVD morbidity or mortality.