this says it's 7% in Japan: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/diabetes-... , but I found another source that says 12% for 2016.

Diabetes scales with obesity and age. Japan has a very old population, but less obesity than the US. White rice despite its glycemic index is not super high calorie. If it's a contributing favor, it's because of weight-gain, not glycemic index.

edit: better source: https://www.diabetesatlas.org/data/en/country/101/jp.html, https://www.diabetesatlas.org/data/en/country/211/us.html

There's more diabetes in the US.

IIRC sticky rice is the worst among white rices. I find it tasty but try to eat basmati most of the time.

> White rice has one of the highest glycemic indexes.

This is correct, but do keep in mind the impact that cooling down has on starches.

A fresh bowl of rice is very high, but cool it for a couple of hours and the GI drops considerably.

Cool it overnight and it drops even more. Onigiri is usually in the cooled down to over-night range.

This never makes rice particularly good from a GI perspective, but preparation is a considerable factor.

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One study, but this is fairly well reproduced: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26693746

And a more general write up: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-to-diabetes/enjoy-food/car...