I posted this around 10 years ago, but now I have a whole new set of followers, thought I'd post it again! Americans use mg/dl as the unit for measuring glucose levels. Most other countries use mmol/l. The relationship between the two is that 1mmol/l = 18mg/dl. I was interested to understand this relationship (as a former chemist) and also find out what it meant in practical terms. It is a bit sad, but here is my calculation: The unit mmol/l stands for milli-moles per litre. (or liter in the US). milli means a thousandth, so what is a mole (other than a small rodent-like animal)? A mole is that quantity of a substance whose mass in grams is the same as its formula weight (atomic weight). Each molecule of glucose has 6 Carbon atoms, 12 Hydrogen atoms and 6 Oxygen atoms. A carbon atom weighs 12 units, a hydrogen atom weighs 1 unit and an oxygen atom weighs 16 units. These units are called relative atomic mass units (don't need to go into why). So the atomic weight of glucos
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