EXCLUSIVE: Henry Slade – Exeter Chiefs and England star talks the challenges of his rugby life with Diabetes
09/03/2024 07:42 AM
England and Exeter Chiefs centre Henry Slade has reached the top of the professional game, all whilst balancing the difficulties that come with life as a diabetic. Slade’s portfolio of rugby accomplishments is certainly an impressive read, as the playmaker has lifted plenty of silverware with his beloved Devon club, as well as on the Test match stage.
In a career which began back in 2011 whilst dual registered with National One club Plymouth Albion, the midfielder progressed into the Exeter Chiefs set-up for a debut in the 2012/13 Premiership season. Slade has been a Sandy Park stalwart ever since he first replaced Gareth Steenson as a fresh-faced 20-year-old. Slade has since accrued two Premiership titles, the Anglo-Welsh Cup and the Champions Cup, throughout his evergreen run with the Chiefs.
Whilst the winners medals alone reflect a shining career within rugby, Slade’s impressive accomplishments are all the more inspiring as he has done it all whilst managing his life with diabetes, a condition that he recently spoke very openly about. Slade spoke to Ruck in an exclusive interview, in collaboration with Dexcom, the diabetes management system that ensures the England star can perform at very best.
“I try to make sure it (diabetes) affects me as little as possible. I know this is on behalf of Dexcom, but I’m not just saying it, Dexcom has actually transformed the way I manage my blood sugars, day to day. In my job, I actually don’t know how I did it before I started.”
“The blood test stuff first off, was a complete ache. You could only do the tests at certain times, only as often as you got blood readings. Whereas with your CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring), I’ve got the G7 now, I had the G6 before, and having those things has transformed me. It allows me to know what my blood sugar is all the time, what direction my blood is trending in, it has helped me so much.
Slade utilises the Dexcom system by linking the device implanted in his arm, directly to an app on his phone. Such easy access to his blood sugar levels ensures that the 31-year-old can check his current intake, and manage the food that he eats throughout the training week, and when he prepares for a match with England or the Chiefs.
“In terms of things I do on a game day, I have to check my app as much as possible, keep making sure I’m in the right range. But day to day, I don’t tend to eat too many carbs, just because carbohydrates are the things that affects your blood sugars, and cause blood sugars to raise. So I have quite minimal carbs during the week, then Friday and Saturday or the day before a game, and the game day, I go pretty heavy on the carbs.
“I try to have like five grams of carbs for every kilo of body weight. I’m about 95 kilo so, it’s about 500 grams of carbs, quite a lot a day. So that then means I’m constantly on my Dexcom app, to make sure that my blood sugar is at a stable level. Obviously, you need carbohydrate energy and you want your blood sugars to do right. So it just takes a lot of looking after and keeping on top of it really, keeping it on track.”
The centre expressed how diabetes is amongst the most mis-understood illnesses, in how unless an individual suffers from the condition, they tend to make incorrect assumptions in regards to it. Slade explained how diabetes is not as black and white as the old Exeter home kit, in how you either can or cannot have sugar in your diet.
“That’s actually one of the misconceptions. I’m pretty sure I saw the other day that over 75% of people with diabetes just grew up misunderstood. People don’t really understand the illness, but I understand why. If you haven’t got it, it’s tricky, if it’s something you don’t have. But a lot of people think that it’s just about, ‘I have to have sugar or I can’t have sugar.’ The whole thing is just about balancing and sugar levels.”
“Eating carbohydrates sends you (blood sugar levels) up, and so, on those days when we’re not able to get the food, and I inject less insulin, I inject relative to how many carbs are needed. I inject relative to how many carbs I’ve eaten. On a normal day, I probably have one unit of insulin to just under every 10 grams of carbs I have.
“That’s when I’m training and using a lot of energy. But on a travel day, when I’m not using as much energy or a rest day, I’m probably one unit (of insulin) every 10 to 15 grams of carbohydrate I have. So I adapt it on different days, training wise and non-training wise. Obviously, your body is using more energy and reacts differently to things on some different days. It takes a bit of getting used to.”
Whilst Slade is predominantly left to his own devices to manage his diabetes away from the pitch, the Exeter and England star receives good guidance on how to manage the condition during the training week. Slade was recently apart of England’s Summer tour of Japan and New Zealand, with the body experiencing plenty of fatigue in the long haul travel days to the Far East and then down to the Southern Hemisphere.
Adding to the difficulty were the two polarising climates Slade experienced on the tour. Whilst Japan welcomed England in the scorching heat of Summer, Steve Borthwick’s side then took on the All Blacks in the middle of the chilly New Zealand winter. Thankfully, Slade had England Performance Nutritionist Dr James Morehen on hand, to guide the Chiefs man through managing his diabetes across the opposing weather conditions.
“In different climates, the heat can affect you in different ways, and the cold effects affects you in different ways. All the things we sort of do day to day as a rugby player, he (Dr Morehen) explained it, how it affects me in different ways. To have someone tell me that, brought my game on so much. Especially with the nutrition side.”
“I think before that, I did get help from people, a little bit help from guys at the club, and a little bit of help from guys England. But he’s the first guy to properly sit down and really take a strong look at what I’m doing and really, really try their best to help me.”
“The heat affects you in different ways. It drains you much quicker than if you have insulin on board. If you inject insulin, it is actually in your system for about four hours. So if I inject at eight with breakfast, and we’re training at nine, that insulin is still in my system. In England, or in a normal ambient climate environment, it just affects you in a normal way.
“But when you go away to hot climate, or in pre-season when it’s Summer and it’s much hotter, when you’re hotter, your blood vessels dilate and the insulin acts faster. So it (blood sugar levels) end up going lower. You burn the energy more quickly anyway, because it’s hotter, so takes a bit of adjusting on the doses and the amounts you give yourself.
“Having him (Dr Morehen) to tell me that helped quite a lot. Then going to New Zealand, going back to normality, really, what (weather) we’re used to in England, so just that bit of time in Tokyo, I was particularly adjusting to.”
This is part one of a two-part feature with Henry Slade. Part two focuses on the new era at Exeter Chiefs, Slade’s views on Manny Feyi-Waboso’s recent England break-throughand the upcoming Autumn International Test against the All Blacks. Keep an eye on Ruck for this upcoming article.
