How to Convert Blood Glucose Units

Blood glucose is measured in two different units. In the United States, monitors will give a reading of blood glucose levels in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl), while the rest of the world measures in millimoles per liter (mmol/l). If you have a foreign blood glucose monitor, or if you want to convert between these units, it is simple to do. All you need is your reading in one unit to convert to the other.

Things You'll Need

• Blood glucose reading in mg/dl or mmol/l

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Instructions

• 1

  To get your reading in mmol/l, divide a reading in mg/dl by 18. For instance, if your monitor said that your glucose level was 180, divide this number by 18 to get an mmol/l reading of 10.

• 2

  Or you can multiply a reading in mg/dl by .0555 to get the reading in mmol/l. This is an alternative to step 1 above, but it will yield roughly the same results. Multiplying 180 by .055 in the above example equals 9.9, which rounds up to 10. This is very close to the answer from step 1.

• 3

  To get your reading in mg/dl, multiply a reading in mmol/l by 18. For instance, if you have a reading of 8 mmol/l. Multiply this by 18 to get a total of 144 mg/dl.