The U.S. government’s dietary guidelines released last year allow people to get as much as 25 percent of their calories from added sugars. If it’s not immediately obvious why that’s a bad idea, a new study spells it out.

All that sugar is the fastest way to put yourself at risk for heart disease — and you can see the damage in just two weeks.

Forty-eight volunteers between the ages of 18 and 40 were asked to spend five weeks limiting added sugars to a single eight-ounce cup of fruit juice a day, bringing them all down to an equal level, sugar-wise.

Then, they were divided into three groups and given 25 percent of their daily calories from one of three types of sugar: glucose, fructose, or high-fructose corn syrup.

For the HFCS group, that’s the equivalent of 3.7 cans of soda a day for women and 4.4 cans for men — a lot of soda (and a lot of sugar), but still less than what you’ll find in a “Double Gulp” at your local 7-11.

After two weeks on this government-approved sugar high, the volunteers who had been getting their calories from fructose and high-fructose corn syrup had significant bumps in their levels of deadly triglycerides as well as a rise in LDL cholesterol.

They even had more apolipoprotein-B, a protein linked to plaque in the arteries, according to the study that will appear this fall in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

If that’s what two weeks of all that sugar will do to you, imagine what’ll happen to your body in two months, two years or two decades — if you even make it that far.

The study also offers more proof that you don’t have to eat fat to send your cholesterol levels through the roof. Sugar will do that for you all by itself. Natural fats, on the other hand, can actually help keep cholesterol levels under control as well as lower your blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

Yet the same government that wants you to eat more sugar is constantly urging you to avoid fat — putting you on a collision course with diabetes, heart disease, and a premature demise.

The lesson here: No matter what Uncle Sam says, no amount of added sugars are an acceptable part of the diet.

I know, you can’t always avoid them… and everyone is going to indulge here and there.

But as a daily ration? Forget it.

It’s so easy it seems unreal: A key weapon in the fight against diabetes might be hovering right outside your window, right now.

It’s the sun — the primary source of vitamin D, and a new study shows how this pancreas-boosting super nutrient can
help stop the disease before it starts.

Researchers gave 92 pre-diabetics either vitamin D3 supplements, calcium supplements, both, or a placebo for four months — then ran some blood tests and found that patients who took the D3 had slightly better blood sugar levels.

Not that big of a deal.

But this is a big deal: The patients who took D3 had dramatically better pancreas function — with the organ’s beta cells showing improvements of up to 30 percent.

Those beta cells are needed to make insulin — and when they stop doing their job, you get diabetes.

The researchers wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that calcium didn’t make a difference when it came to giving those cells a lift — just the D3.

It’s not the first study to make the link: Research has found time and again that vitamin D can help control blood sugar levels (even more so than in this study) and lower the overall risk of diabetes.

One study last year found that people middle aged and older with the highest D levels had a 55 percent lower risk of type 2 diabetes and 51 percent lower risk of metabolic syndrome than those with the least.

That should be enough to entice any pre-diabetic into spending more quality time under the sun, or at least investing in a quality D3 supplement — but while the sunshine vitamin is a great place to start, you’ll need a few more weapons if you hope to win the war against this disease.

Cinnamon — as in the spice, but you’ll want the extract — has shown an amazing ability to slash blood sugar levels and reduce your blood pressure, while the mineral chromium can reduce both fasting insulin and fasting glucose levels.

And if you want to put some punch into your plan, try Popeye’s favorite source of power: spinach. This leafy green is packed with magnesium, which studies have shown can lower your levels of insulin resistance and slash your risk of diabetes. (Read more here.)

Your body also needs magnesium to put its vitamin D to work — so if you’re going to get one, be sure to get the other.

Up next: More on vitamin D.

Cinnamon isn’t just a tasty spice… it could also help you beat diabetes.

A strong new study finds that a cinnamon extract can decrease blood sugar levels in people at risk for the condition.

And that’s some pretty sweet news no matter how you look at it.

Researchers randomly assigned 137 hyperglycemic patients with an average age of 61 to take either 500 milligrams of the cinnamon extract each day, or a placebo, for two months.

At the end of that period, the cinnamon group lowered their fasting blood glucose levels by an average of 7.5 percent, versus just 1.6 percent in the placebo group, according to the study presented at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology’s annual meeting.

The double-blind study also found that the cinnamon extract lowered blood sugar levels by 12 percent two hours after a carb-loaded meal. Those who took the placebo saw a drop of only 3.1 percent.

That’s all good… but of course, if you’re facing diabetes, you need a lot more than cinnamon – you need a healthy lifestyle. But adding cinnamon to your healthy diet just might help you make a quicker getaway from the scene of the disease.

And that’s not the only reason to add some of this sweet spice to your life.

Cinnamon is a powerful antioxidant that can help boost the immune system. It also has antibacterial and antifungal properties, and may help fight off yeast infections. Some people have had success using cinnamon to ease stomach problems, including gas and constipation.

And cinnamon tastes pretty good in food and drinks, too.

Just remember, these are the health benefits of cinnamon, not sticky buns. In other words, don’t use this to justify a trip to Cinnabon.

If you’re interested in unlocking the natural powers of cinnamon, skip the junk and buy the real thing – either completely natural cinnamon sticks or high-quality 100 percent ground cinnamon. One good way to enjoy it, of course, is blended into your coffee.

You can also get cinnamon from a supplement, either on its own or as part of an antioxidant blend.

But whatever you do, don’t get it from the food court at your local mall.

Bad news for Big Pharma–a slew of new studies finds that diabetes meds do little to prevent diabetes-related death, and virtually nothing at all to stop new cases of the disease.

The answer from the latest research is resounding: Drugs won’t save your life. In fact, the studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine should make anyone wonder why these nothing pills are even given at all:

• The popular diabetes drug Starlix did nothing to prevent new cases of diabetes in people at risk for the condition.
• Starlix also did nothing to lower the risk of heart disease, heart attacks and death in those patients.
• The blood pressure med Diovan lowered the risk of diabetes by only 14 percent–while doing nothing to reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems.
• Cholesterol meds did nothing to boost levels of “good” HDL cholesterol in diabetics.
• Drugs commonly used to lower blood sugar levels in diabetics did nothing to protect the heart.

Meanwhile, all of the meds frequently given to diabetics and people at risk for the condition come with side effects, and some of them are even potentially deadly. I’ve told you quite a bit lately about Avandia, the diabetes med linked to an increased risk of heart attack. The FDA’s own numbers associate this med with at least 83,000 heart attacks–and that estimate was made back in 2007.

Other drugs may be less deadly… but they’re not much better. In addition to the potential for side effects, many people who take these meds also suffer from a false sense of security. More than a few diabetics believe that drugs alone will save them, and refuse to make the lifestyle changes that will really make a difference.

And that’s a huge mistake. We have more drugs for diabetics than ever before… yet the number of cases keeps on growing.

There are 24 million diabetics in the United States, and some 57 million more who are overweight and have dangerously high blood-sugar levels. One recent study estimates that we could have as many as 44 million diabetics by 2034.

Are all these people really crying out for more meds? Of course they’re not. All they really need is a commitment to the lifestyle changes that have helped thousands of diabetics live longer, healthier lives, and kept others from ever getting the condition in the first place.

One decade-long study published last year found lifestyle changes had double the power of a popular diabetes drug when it came to lowering the risk of the condition.

You can slash your own risk by cutting out the carbs, starting with sugar. Then, work in 20-30 minutes of steady exercise each day. It’s a pretty simple formula–but it’s powerfully effective.

And while all these meds keep falling short, one simple mineral might succeed.