Bayer HealthCare gets new celebrity spokesman for diabetes products

LEVERKUSEN, Germany Bayer HealthCare has enlisted a British snowboarder as part of an effort to promote its diabetes products.

An article posted on the company’s media-relations Web site Thursday profiled 26-year-old Chris Southwell, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes, four years ago. The article mentioned that Southwell checks his blood glucose levels eight or nine times a day using Bayer’s Breeze 2 meter.

“When I am snowboarding, I am a lot more intense with my riding partners and explain all the signs indicating high or low blood glucose levels,” Southwell said in the article. “I also make sure that they carry a hypo treatment with them all the time, in case I lose mine.”