In the U.S., blood glucose is measured in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl).
What does that actually look like in terms of an amount? How much glucose is floating around in your blood?!?
I tried to simplify it using more commonly understood measurements.
The density of glucose is = 1.54 g / cm^3
One deciliter is = 3.3814 fluid ounces (U.S.), or 0.422675 cups (U.S.)
And 1 cubic centimeter is 100 units (in a normal U100 type syringe or pen, which everyone is familiar with).
Doing the conversion to give you an idea how much glucose is in your blood, this is an easy way to visualize it.
Take a measuring cup from your kitchen, and fill it with 1/2 cup of water (this represents your blood in the comparison). Take a syringe and fill it with 6.375 units (this represents glucose).
6.375 units of glucose in 1/2 a cup would be a BG reading of 83 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl).
Here are some more visuals:
- 6.37 units in 1/2 cup would be 83 mg/dl
- 7.68 units in 1/2 cup would be 100 mg/dl
- 15.36 units in 1/2 cup would be 200 mg/dl
- 23.04 units in 1/2 cup would be 300 mg/dl
Might be fun at your next endo meeting to tell them your BG target is 6.37 units in 1/2 cup…
