Page 43 of the December 7, 2009 issue of EE Times has an interesting examination of the internals of a blood glucose meter, specifically the Ascensia Breeze glucose meter manufactured by Bayer AG. What is most interesting is a lack of parts: an NEC 8 bit microcontroller, an ASIC coloumeter, and a 4K serial EEPROM are the only major parts (not counting crystals and capacitors). Looks like they could easily drop the EEPROM and reduce the parts count even further.