Diabetes doesn't slow Kimball down

CEDAR RAPIDS – Charlie Kimball wasn’t about to apply the brakes to his racing career.

Sure, he had to slow down briefly when he was diagnosed with Type I diabetes in 2007, when his career was revving up, but the 26-year-old has accelerated a return to the top level of open-wheel racing.

Kimball became the first licensed IZOD IndyCar Series driver with diabetes when he signed on with Chip Ganassi Racing this season. He personifies the idea that diabetes doesn’t have to be a roadblock while pursuing dreams. Kimball conveyed that message while meeting with local children from the Eastern Iowa Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation on Wednesday at Hawkeye Downs Speedway.

“That’s one of the great things about, not only my partnership with Novo Nordisk but, my racing program in the IZOD IndyCar Series is that I’m helping to prove diabetes doesn’t have to slow you down,” said Kimball, who has been associated with Novo Nordisk, an organization dedicated to diabetes care and technology, for a few years. “You can do anything you want in life.”

Kimball, the son of Formula One designer and engineer Gordon Kimball, began racing go-karts at 9 and tested his first open-wheel car at 16. He won his very first open-wheel race in 2002.

He is 19th in the season points standings, earning a 10th-place finish at the Grand Prix of Alabama and will compete in the Iowa Corn Indy 250 Saturday at the Iowa Speedway in Newton. It is his ninth start this season and he will be trying for his second top 10 and fifth top 20 performance of the season. The race is scheduled to start at 8 p.m.

“It’s going really well,” Kimball said. “We’re within shooting distance for Rookie of the Year points. We’re hitting our stride.

“I expect a real (barn burner). The track is challenging.”

Challenges are nothing new to Kimball, who has to monitor and manage his blood sugar levels during races. His cockpit is different from his competitors. He wears a “continuous glucose monitor” throughout the race with a display on his steering wheel, so he can check that gauge along with water temperature, oil pressure and his speed.

Like most drivers, Kimball has a drinking system to keep hydrated during the race. He has an additional mounted bottle filled with sugar water. When the monitor alerts him of low blood sugar levels, he can push a button to activate a drink to reach proper levels.

Keep Your Blood Sugar Level Under Control

Controlling blood sugar (glucose) levels is one of the most important aspects of diabetes management . It will make you feel better in the short-term and it will help you to stay fit and healthy in the long term.

The National Committee on Prevention Detection Evaluation, the chromium and many interesting articles. People who do not have diabetes keep their blood glucose levels within a narrow range for most of the time. The beta cells in the pancreas are able to produce just the right amount of insulin at the right time and they are constantly fine-tuning the blood glucose level. People with diabetes do not have this fine control over their blood glucose levels.

This might be because the beta cells have been destroyed and there is no insulin production at all, as in Type 1 diabetes. Alternatively, it may be that the body does not respond to the insulin and/or not enough insulin is produced when it is needed, as in Type 2 diabetes . The approach to managing Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes is slightly different, but whichever type of diabetes you have, you will still need to step in and take over that fine-tuning of your blood glucose level.

Controlling blood glucose levels is a bit like trying to lasso an unruly animal. Blood glucose is dynamic; it changes constantly and it is influenced by a host of factors including your choice of food, how much you eat, the timing of your medication or insulin, your emotions, illnesses, your weight, and your body’s resistance to insulin.

Some of these factors are relatively constant from day to day and are quite easily accounted for; some factors are more variable. No two days are ever exactly the same, or entirely predictable, and this makes it difficult. So, blood glucose is not easily lassoed.

In practical terms, you will need to learn about those things that raise your blood glucose level and those things that lower your blood glucose level. Then you will need to balance these factors on a day-to-day and possibly even hour-by-hour basis. This means coordinating medication, food and activity levels, whilst making appropriate allowances for stress, illness or changes in your daily activities.

You will be aiming to avoid the extreme highs and lows, trying to manipulate your blood glucose toward the normal range. You will be doing regular finger-prick blood glucose tests and using these results to help balance those things that make your blood glucose rise with those that make it fall. When you have evened out your blood glucose level you will still need to keep an eye on it and continue to make adjustments.

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