Baltimore Ravens NFL player Mark Andrews: Thriving with diabetes

A good deal of people today — particularly professional athletes — are obsessed with the…

A good deal of people today — particularly professional athletes — are obsessed with the strategy of the “quantified self,” the perception that you can review your individual health knowledge to enhance your high quality of lifetime, or athletic efficiency.

But not a large amount of individuals — primarily professional athletes — have Variety 1 diabetes like I do, the place quantifying what is occurring in my entire body is not only vital to keep on playing in the NFL, but also to my survival.

This could have set a chip on my shoulder from a younger age, but it has pushed me to do the job more durable to demonstrate to myself and every person else that diabetic issues will by no means keep me back, and, in fact, it’s basically my greatest strength.

Allow me clarify.

I was 9 yrs aged when I was identified with Variety 1 diabetes, an autoimmune sickness where my immune program destroys cells in my pancreas that make insulin. Controlling diabetes is a 24/7 job, and one that needs frequent glucose checking and insulin injections. Without having insulin, blood sugar just cannot get into the cells and make up in the bloodstream. Significant blood sugar is detrimental to the physique and will cause numerous of the symptoms and complications of diabetic issues.