On January 27, Nel Peach will pick up the Olympic Torch and carry it 300 metres through her home community of Salmon Arm, B.C. It’s the realization of a hope and a dream for the 69-year-old, thanks to her nomination by local MLA George Abbott.
But carrying a torch is really nothing new for Peach, who has been doing just that for diabetes advocacy for the past quarter century.
Peach is a perfect choice for the Olympic honour, given her well-known commitment to physical activity and fitness and her participation in recent years in the Team Diabetes Canada marathons.
Peach started participating in longer runs in 2003 at a 10-km race in Hawaii and completed her first full marathon – 42 km – in Rome in 2006. She recently completed her ninth event and will go for number 10 in Calgary next year.
“I got a bit tired of selling raffle tickets,” she chuckles, explaining her decision to get involved in long-distance running. Team participants undertake a training program and then run or walk at events held around the world to raise funds for research and advocacy and to encourage lifestyle changes that reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and promote a healthy lifestyle for diabetics and all Canadians.
Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 27 years ago, at age 42, Peach was always committed to a physically fit lifestyle. “I’ve always been involved with walking, well before I got diabetes,” she says. “That was probably a blessing.” She’s also done biking and swimming. And she’s adamant in her belief that the physical activity helps to keep her blood-glucose numbers in check.
But it’s more than that, she adds. It also helps with other conditions, many – such as her osteoporosis – exacerbated by the disease.
“It’s for overall health,” she says. “It’s also maybe strengthening my heart. And it’s for weight control.”
Dr. Ian Blumer, diabetes specialist in the Durham region of Ontario and author of Diabetes for Canadians for Dummies, couldn’t agree more.
While he allows that there has been more extensive study of the impact of exercise on the management of type 2 diabetes, he says, “It’s crystal clear that exercise is incredibly helpful for people with either form. Exercise and diabetes go together magnificently!”
And, like Peach, he stresses that it helps in more ways than just controlling blood sugars. “When we talk about exercise, we have to look at the effect not only on overall glucose controls. We have to also look at its impact on cholesterol, blood pressure, reducing cardiac risk or premature heart attacks. It helps all those things.”
And not to be overlooked, he adds, is that it improves a person’s sense of well-being. “People feel happier and more content, less agitated and less frustrated with life when they exercise. Anybody who exercises regularly, whether they’ve got diabetes or not, knows that.”
For type 1 diabetics, exercise – particularly the intense kind – can add a layer of complexity and requires awareness of pitfalls and certain precautions.
Most people think that blood sugars will decrease with exercise because it’s burning calories, and often that is true. However, he says, “what most people don’t know, including people living with diabetes, is that sometimes when you do intense exercise, like a sprint or a long run, it will make your blood sugars go up, not down.”
This is because hormones, like adrenaline, trigger the fight-or-flight response and actually draw sugar out of the liver and increase the levels in the body. So type 1 diabetics, who are dependent on insulin therapy, must understand how to adjust their dosages to compensate.
There’s equal danger in a low-blood-sugar attack. So anyone going out for an exercise session should make sure they have snacks with them.
Peach experienced this during her 2008 attempt to complete a full marathon at Disneyworld. Just over halfway through, her blood sugar dipped, sending her to the medical tent. Although it quickly rebounded, with the help of fruit and glucose pills, she had lost her pace in the marathon and was forced to drop out.
Another pitfall for type 1 diabetics, Blumer says, is that the blood sugar might not go down during the workout but could do so hours –up to 12 hours – later, at 3 a.m. after an evening run, or possibly the following morning.
For each person, he says, it’s a matter of learning how their body reacts and taking the appropriate precautions.
Nevertheless, he says the benefits of exercise definitely outweigh the risks as long as the person understands and prepares for them. And there are notable examples of people living with type 1 diabetes and achieving incredible physical feats.
He cites examples such as Olympic rower Chris Jarvis, PGA golfer Scott Verplank and Sebastian Sasseville, the first Canadian with type 1 diabetes to summit Mount Everest and one of only three people in the world with the chronic disease to have climbed the highest peak on the planet. (He’s also scaled Kilimanjaro – with nine type 1 teenagers – and Peak Lenin, a 7134-metre hill in Kyrgyzstan, the second-highest peak in the former Soviet Union.)
There’s even a website devoted to diabetes and exercise, Blumer notes. The Diabetes Exercise and Sports Association (DESA) – at diabetes-exercise.org – is committed to enhancing the quality of life for people with diabetes through exercise and physical fitness.
Blumer also notes that it’s important to realize that you don’t have to be achieving remarkable feats but that exercise is helpful for everyone. “If you want to be a marathon runner, bless you, go for it. But if you are sedentary, going for a 10-minute walk is still beneficial. No one should be thinking it’s all or nothing. Any exercise is good.”
Photo: 2: Team Diabetes fundraisers for the Canadian Diabetes Association encourage diabetics and their supporters, like these in a recent Okanagan race, to get active by walking or running a full or half marathon in one of several Canadian and international destinations. Visit teamdiabetes.ca for more details.
