Pricking his finger to check blood glucose levels used to be a pain, but these days Luca Cusmano is too busy fighting baddies to worry about it.
The young Sydney boy is one of the first diabetics in the world to get his hands on a new video game pre-programmed to reward him for checking his glucose levels regularly.
"It's cool fun," said Luca, nine, who was first diagnosed with type one diabetes in April, joining about 8,000 other young Australians.
"I didn't like all the tests, but now I just get to play games and get points, so I don't think about it really."
The US invention, designed by the father of a diabetic, is being launched for the first time in the world in Australia to mark World Diabetes Day.
The NSW branch of Diabetes Australia is heralding the new toy as an innovative way to get children to comply with their glucose checks, carried out up to six times a day.
The device, which costs $299, works by slotting into a portable video game.
Kids who test regularly for healthy levels of blood glucose are awarded extra points to unlock new characters and secret game levels.
Characters in the five specially-designed games include a galaxy-hopping maverick who fights his way through a planet of aliens to rescue the admiral's daughter, and a regular boy called Hunter who takes on Carnie Cal and his evil clowns.
"It's a good idea, just brilliant, particularly for boys who are not so good at doing their blood glucose testing," said Dr Neville Howard, president of Diabetes Australia-NSW.
"Now they've got an incentive.
"The parents might not be so happy because the kids play with it all the time, but from what we've seen it really works.
"The kids love it and they don't feel so strange having to test anymore."
The device was invented by an American businessman Paul Wessel, funded by an Australian investment bank and jointly marketed by Diabetes Australia-NSW.
"I stumbled across the idea really," said Mr Wessel, an entrepreneur from Minnesota.
"My son Luke is diabetic and he kept deliberately losing his blood glucose meter because he hated testing, so this was a solution."
Professor Paul Zimmet, director of the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, said the device could improve diabetes management considerably in families that could afford to purchase it.
"Anything that encourages young people to stick to the strict regimen of testing that diabetes demands has to be welcomed," Prof Zimmet said.
