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, Chris Jarvis , Richard Weil MEd, CDE
Summary
Diabetes is no reason to stop chasing Olympic gold. Meet Chris Jarvis, an elite Canadian rower, who continues to aggressively train despite having diabetes. How does he do it?
Webcast Transcript
CHRIS JARVIS: It was a really scary time for me, because I had all this passion for competing in sports and I was kind of told that I wouldn't be able to make the varsity boat, because they couldn't trust in me. Maybe my blood sugars would be bad during a race and that I would be bringing down the whole team.
ANNOUNCER: It was a turning point in Chris Jarvis's life as an athlete with diabetes. But his college coach was correct in believing fluctuating blood sugar levels could jeopardize Chris's performance.
RICHARD WEIL, MEd, CDE: For people who perform at high levels of exercise, keeping blood sugar in a relatively normal range is important because their performance is going to diminish.
So reaction time, movement time, speed, accuracy, cognitive function, all the things that are important, coordination, all the things that are important for an elite athlete in terms of motor performance are going to diminish when blood sugars are really out of range, either high or low.
ANNOUNCER: Exercise has an insulin-like effect, because muscles burn glucose. So a special problem for athletes is hypoglycemia.
RICHARD WEIL, MEd, CDE: The greatest risk for our patients who have diabetes and exercise is hypoglycemia. Blood sugars change rapidly with exercise, and we're constantly confronted with, "How do we manage blood sugar so that it's not going to drop so low that they can't perform?"
ANNOUNCER: Chris sought out a doctor that could help him better regulate his blood sugar levels. The use of fast-acting insulin and insulin pumps helped a great deal. Chris learned to even things out, to make small adjustments in food and insulin intake.
CHRIS JARVIS: What it did for me was make me a lot more consistent and instead of having the peaks, like the high, high blood sugars, and then the drops right down, I started maintaining a level blood sugar instead. So if I was high, I would slowly come down. And I gained, I guess, diabetic maturity
ANNOUNCER: Chris found it was also important to even out training.
CHRIS JARVIS: I have to exercise every day. So what I found was that like, on a Sunday, I would be training seven hours of cardio a day, leading up to Sunday. Sunday is our day off. But for me, as a diabetic, it's better for me to go and exercise instead of taking the day off, because, otherwise, my insulin levels will change dramatically.
ANNOUNCER: Monitoring blood sugar levels is important for any person with diabetes. For athletes, especially so.
RICHARD WEIL, MEd, CDE: For athletes to keep their blood sugar in a normal range while they're performing, it's important that they monitor their blood sugar very frequently. When I am working with an athlete who has diabetes, during practice sessions, we monitor the blood sugar frequently.
CHRIS JARVIS: And definitely, checking my blood sugar is something that I do consistently. When I'm training, I'm testing my blood sugar twelve, fifteen times a day.
ANNOUNCER: Chris rows with the Canadian National Team, and competed in the 2004 Olympics in Greece. As he aims for Beijing in 2008, good control of his blood sugar is keeping him in the game.
CHRIS JARVIS: It's given me an opportunity to push myself harder, and it gives you a level. And then, the next day, you know where you're at and you try and beat that, and I think that's something that I really take away from sports, to just continually try and self-improve.
ANNOUNCER: Experts in diabetes education say Chris's story has a good message, even for people with more modest athletic goals.
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