Bayer Diabetes Care in the UK and Ireland today unveils Didget, the first and only blood glucose meter for kids with diabetes that connects directly to Nintendo DS. The Didget meter is designed to help kids manage this lifelong condition by rewarding them for building consistent blood glucose testing habits and meeting personalised glucose target ranges.

The Didget meter, intended for use by kids aged 5-14, will also connect to Bayer’s Didget World , a new password-protected web community where kids can spend points that they earn from consistent monitoring practices and create their own page. Bayer’s Didget World is currently in development and will be available soon.

Bayer’s Didget meter grows with a child’s ability to manage his/her diabetes, offering two testing levels, Basic and Advanced. Self monitoring blood glucose is an essential tool in the optimal management of childhood and adolescent diabetes. Self monitoring blood glucose should be prescribed at a frequency to optimise each child’s diabetes control because frequency of self monitoring blood glucose correlates with glycaemic control(1). Bayer’s Didget meter is based on Bayer’s trusted Contour system and uses the same technology and test strips, providing the same easy accuracy, No Coding technology, automatic correction for haematocrit and common interfering substances including maltose, 5 second test time, a small (0.6 microL) sample size and automatic detection of control solution.

Bayer’s Didget meter comes with Knock ’Em Downs: World’s Fair which includes a full length adventure game and mini game arcade. Bayer’s Didget will be available soon.

Bayer Diabetes Care UK is working in partnership with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) in the UK and GBP5 from the sale of every meter will be donated to the JDRF.