The blood glucose level is commonly expressed as

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, Milligram per decilitre (mg/dL). In clinical and laboratory practice blood glucose (blood sugar) is reported as milligrams of glucose per decilitre of blood; a normal fasting value is roughly 70-99 mg/dL. (The SI alternative used in many countries is millimoles per litre, mmol/L, but among the four options given, mg/dL is the standard expression.) Hence option (b) is correct.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Wrong — millimetres of mercury (mm Hg) is a unit of PRESSURE (e.g. blood pressure, gas partial pressures), not of a dissolved substance's concentration like glucose.  (c) Wrong — parts per million (ppm) is used for very dilute/trace concentrations (e.g. pollutants, water hardness), not for the routine reporting of blood glucose.  (d) Wrong — grams per litre is not the conventional clinical unit for blood glucose; laboratories report it in milligrams per decilitre (mg/dL), the smaller, standard unit.

Concept: Blood glucose is the concentration of glucose (the body's main circulating sugar) in the blood, kept within a narrow range by the hormones insulin and glucagon. It is conventionally measured in milligrams per decilitre (mg/dL). Typical reference values: fasting about 70-99 mg/dL, with 100-125 mg/dL flagged as pre-diabetic and >=126 mg/dL (fasting) indicating diabetes. The SI unit millimoles per litre (mmol/L) is used in some countries, but Indian and US reports use mg/dL.

State PCS 2021 Q90 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2021 Q90 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer