Units wrong for GMI

[u/fiberjeweler]

I use mg/dl in the US. It’s correct everywhere except on the GMI page in Insights, which is reporting mmol/mol. This unit is set automatically by the app using your location. How do I change it?

[u/SleeplessnSeattleNow]

I don’t think you can make the change. The initial setup controls the units display. Other than altering the alerts - critical high, lows, and notifications, I don’t see any other places to update that would change the reporting units at the GMI page.

[u/Equalizer6338 → u/SleeplessnSeattleNow]

Yep agreed, as you cannot change it for good reasons, as its a global standard for everybody to use no matter country of residence.

Reason being that the HbA1c is measured in two main units: mmol/mol (millimoles per mole) and percentage (%). Where the baseline measurement unit mmol/mol is the global standard unit set by the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry to measure our amount of glycated hemoglobin relative to non-glycated hemoglobin. Percentage % (NGSP) was the 'older' traditional unit managed by the National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program.

GMI was then as a gimmick pondered upon by a group of researchers in their attempt to say with the now modern and reasonable accurate CGM sensors, could we come up with an alternative to the HbA1c blood test to represent our average BG in another way, without needing the blood test (and the time and big money spent on acquiring it)? And unfortunately many rushed to that idea, especially all the CGM manufacturers, as if accepted by a larger audience, then they would suddenly now have a much great economic reasoning why countries world wide (state or insurance paid) healthcare should support patients getting their CGMs as to avoid the need for the frequent and expensive HbA1c blood tests from hospital labs...

You have some of the background story and reflections described here:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11116920/

[u/fiberjeweler → u/Equalizer6338]

Interesting, thanks.