"The finding suggests that any kind of policy that reduces consumption might have a dramatic health benefit," said senior study author Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who presented the finding Friday during the American Heart Association's Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention annual conference.

The American Heart Association already recommends limiting consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks.

Check out more diabetes information at AOL Health.

Diabetes can be unpredictable. Your blood-sugar can drop too low fairly quickly and the long-term consequences of diabetes aren't pretty. Still, with good self-management, you can minimize your chances of developing complications. To stay healthy and avoid the complications that can arise over time, it is important to follow some basic health guidelines. Like anyone else, you should eat a healthy diet, exercise and visit your doctor regularly. Check out AOL Health for other self-management tips.

The holidays are a hard time for anyone to maintain their weight. Between the cocktail hours, appetizer buffets, family dinners and packed dessert trays, there are diet hurdles everywhere. For those with diabetes, the diet traps can be down-right dangerous.

Instead of staying home, stick to several dining-out basics:

• Avoid hidden oils, carbohydrates or quality of the nutrients you are eating.
• Watch portion sizes. One appetizer is okay. Making a meal out of them isn't.
• Limit dressings, dips and other condiments. They can be high-calorie traps.

Insulin not only moves glucose into the cells, but it also escorts Vitamin C. Blood sugar hogs the seats on the bus in most diabetics, therefore reducing the amount of Vitamin C we can absorb. This is the premise of The GAA Theory: high glucose levels hinder vitamin C entry into cells.

Vitamin C is vitally important for many functions throughout the body - a big one being metabolism. Glucose and Vitamin C are similar in the way they enter the cells. Both molecules require help from insulin. The name for the process that brings glucose and Vitamin C through cell membranes is insulin-mediated uptake. The insulin-mediated uptake of glucose and vitamin C uses white blood cells. White blood cells have more insulin pumps and they may contain 20 times the amount of vitamin C as ordinary cells.

So does increasing your Vitamin C help boost your glycemic control? Diabetes Health cited a study that confirms daily doses of 2,000 mg of absorbic acid improved both fasting blood glucose and HbA1c readings in patients with type 2 diabetes. Next time you swing by the store - see if some Emergen-C can help you achieve better glycemic control. With 1,000 mg of Vitamin C per packet - their homepage says: Feel The Good. Little did they know how good it could be for Type 2 diabetics!

Thomas Smith began reviewing scientific literature after conventional medicine failed him in controlling diabetes. Smith found research that shows dietary toxins impair cell membrane function. These toxins include trans fatty acids and refined sugars. Cells begin to have trouble absorbing nutrients, and the blood sugar rises. Over time, this results in chronic elevated blood and urine sugar levels. Sounds like a growing epidemic, doesn't it?

This damage to cell membranes, caused by a poor diet, can be repaired. The diabetic syndrome can be cured by eliminating all processed fats and oils. The protocol calls for supplementing high-dose Omega-3 fatty acids. This protocol normalizes blood sugars because the body is continuously repairing cell membranes by using the fats and oils available in the diet. One caution: the speed of recovery is related to the length of the illness. Some Type 2 diabetics may require up to one year for dramatic reductions in blood sugar.

A gaping hole exists between conventional medicine and diet. Conventional medicine claims that the cause of Type 2 diabetes is unknown. Medical doctors, as practitioners of conventional medicine, are not trained to explain how it happened. They treat symptoms with medicine. The business of medicine is medicine. The business of diabetes would be devasted if the cure was as simple as diet. The explanation Thomas Smith provides in his empirical studies is fascinating and I encourage anybody with competing or supporting evidence to open the debate.

UCLA researchers report Nevada County, California residents have the lowest rate of diabetes in the state -- 2.6 percent. That's about one-third the state-wide average (6.8 percent), and slightly less than one-quarter the prevalence of diabetes in Imperial County (11.2 percent).

Take a few guesses why Nevada County's rate of diabetes is so much lower than Imperial County, and well under the national average of 7 percent. Do families eat less processed food around the dinner table? More jogging trails? Better health insurance coverage? Researcher Theresa Hastert states, "There is no one thing, but higher income is associated with better foods and exercise."

Hastert explained Nevada County is mostly white, affluent, educated and insured. Imperial County has a large population of Latinos and migrant farm workers. Nevada County's numbers support general findings that minorities without affordable, continuous health care are more prone to the disease. Who's got time for the dinner table -- Hastert openly speculates eating more junk food may be a consequence of dodging between three jobs just to get by. Also, Nevada County is a beautiful area -- she wonders if environmental factors play a role.

Is diabetes a socio-economic disease? If so, we're in trouble. The gap is widening between our nation's haves and have nots, and large concentrations of poor minorities may explain the disproportionate rates of diabetes from county to county. Read more in The Union.

Nutrigenetics is the study of the interaction of genes and diet. The Diet Channel has published an article explaining what nutrigenetics is and how it will revolutionize the world of diabetes.

Researchers believe elevated blood sugar can be mapped back to a genetic reaction. Drugs are only overriding the cause of elevated blood sugar and forcing the sugar into the cells, causing damage over time. Nutrigenetics is addressing the cause of the elevated blood sugar and may suggest a better diet to control your diabetes. Genes control how you metabolize certain vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. These genes can vary from one individual to the next. See what happens to Buddy the Elf when he consumes way too much coffee? Yes, I know - that's Hollywood. Nevertheless - a comical example of what nutrigenetics explores.

Consumer-friendly tests are available for these gene and diet interactions. The tests are done with a cheek swab. You send your swab off to a specialized lab, which analyzes DNA from the cheek cells. You receive a report identifying your gene variations. A qualified health professional can explain the test results, and make specific diet and supplement recommendations to optimize your health. If this is a test you're interested in taking, Sciona's Mycellf Program will be happy to prepare your profile. Open up and say Ahhhh.

A study reported in the journal Nutrition found obese, diabetic mice whose diet was supplemented with an extract of cacao liquor demonstrated a significant reduction in blood sugar.

Scientists examined if cacao beans might be helpful in preventing Type 2 diabetes. They supplemented the diets of obese, diabetic mice with cacao liquor for 3 weeks. The specific type of cacao liquor, called cacao liquor proanthocyanidins (CLPr), contains 72% polyphenols. They found that blood sugar was reduced in direct correlation with the dosage of CLPr.

This study was funded by confectionary giant Mars, Inc. In case Mars doesn't ring a bell - maybe some of their products might: Snicksers, 3 Musketeers, Milky Way, and M & M's to name a few. With the results of this research, and the deep pockets behind it -- maybe Mars is contemplating coming out with a diabetes-reversing candy bar? I suggest they call it The Sweet Escape (start the music!)

Back in 2000, researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada transplanted islet cells in the livers of people with type 1, known as the Edmonton Protocol. Each islet transplant required several cadaver donors. The transplants worked for awhile, but approximately 80 percent of patients required insulin after a couple years. It was assumed the transplanted cells were rejected, but new research points to a new possible culprit -- fat.

Dr. Roger Unger and colleagues of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas performed the Edmonton Protocol in rats with type 1. Fat built up around the transplanted cells in only a month. The cells stopped producing insulin and the rats died after 15 weeks. Dr. Unger explained the liver creates fatty acids from food, and islet transplants in the liver are surrounded by too much fat. He proved his point by repeating the transplant in a separate group of type 1 rats, but this time the rats were on a strict diet. A third group of rats received leptin, a hormone involved in increasing metabolism and decreasing appetite. These rats had an improved response, although the Reuters story does not provide specifics. Here's the study abstract in Diabetes, but ya gotta pay for the full text article.

Bummer. You get an islet cell transplant, but still have to stay away from the Ben & Jerry's. A next step could be testing this theory in human islet cell transplants via a low-calorie, low-sugar diet following transplantation. Read more in Reuters.

When I read the headline in this Yahoo! news, Obesity rates climb in most states, I took a stab at guessing the leanest and fattest states in America. My favorite state, Colorado, immediately came to mind for the fittest state. Ding, ding, ding ... that is correct! But I had no clue on the fattest state, West Virginia was a shaky guess. I heard the buzzer on that one, Mississippi became the first state to break the 30 percent barrier for obese, adult residents. But hey, I wasn't far off, West Virginia and Alabama are slightly behind the double-letter state.

Colorado has an obesity rate of 17.6. Yikes, this is the leanest state in the nation. Statistics were provided by the Trust for America's Health. They analyzed state health department-generated telephone surveys of height and weight, combining three years of data (2004-2006) for improved projections. No one denies obesity increases the risk for diabetes and chronic diseases. Jeffrey Levi, executive director, stated everyone believes obesity is an epidemic, but political and policymaker attention is lacking. Levi agrees weight is a personal choice and responsibility, but he wants societal improvements to help people make better choices, such as healthier school lunches and safer places to be active across all classes.

The report is not intended to stigmatize fat states, but motivate them to action. Is this honestly a good way to do it? We should be talking about poverty in Mississippi, not scolding them. The five poorest states were in the top 10 when it came to obesity rates. I'm sure the Mississippi fat jokes have already begun. This country loves to categorize, from Money's Best Places to Live to U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges. Now we'll be adding an obesity category to all these reports. I can see it now, some diet rag will announce the Top 100 Thinnest Universities.

A new study by Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research carries both good news and bad news. Bad news first -- research of 9,439 mother-child pairs shows maternal blood sugar is tied to a future risk of obesity in offpsring. Pregnant women with above-normal blood sugar levels were twice as likely to have overweight kids. Across all racial and ethnic groups, the higher the mother's blood sugar during pregnancy, the greater the chance her offspring would develop obesity by 5 to 7 years of age.

Now if you're pregnant and you've been diagnosed with high blood sugar, take a deep breath. The good news is the risk of childhood obesity is reversible if elevated sugars are treated through diet, exercise and insulin (if required). At particular risk are women with sugar levels higher than normal, but not high enough to be deemed gestational diabetes. They were more likely to have obese children than women treated for gestational diabetes or those with normal sugars.

Borderline blood sugars are nothing to ignore. I shared in a previous post that moderately elevated glucose during pregnancy is associated with other problems such as cesarean section and heavier babies. Gestational diabetes criteria may widen. Also, Deanna reported earlier this month that gestational diabetes is linked to pancreatic cancer.