Molar Mass of Glucose

Glucose's 180.156 g/mol is the reason the world reports blood sugar in two incompatible units. The United States uses mg/dL, most of the rest of the world uses mmol/L, and the conversion factor is 18.02 — a fasting 90 mg/dL is 5.0 mmol/L, and a diabetic 200 mg/dL is 11.1 mmol/L. Every clinical calculator that crosses a border carries this molar mass inside it.

It is also the accounting unit of metabolism. Complete oxidation, C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6 O₂ → 6 CO₂ + 6 H₂O, releases 2803 kJ per mole — about 15.6 kJ per gram — and yields roughly 30–32 molecules of ATP, while photosynthesis runs the identical equation backwards using captured sunlight. Isotonic 5 % dextrose infusion is 50 g/L, or 278 mmol/L, and the formula is shared with fructose and galactose, which differ only in how the same atoms are arranged.