British spelling: the presence of glucose in the blood; the concentration of sugar in the bloodstream.
From Greek 'glykys' (sweet) plus 'aemia' (a condition of the blood, from Latin '-emia'), meaning 'sweetness in the blood.' This technical term emerged in the 19th century as medicine developed ways to measure blood sugar.
Blood sugar was literally called 'sweetness in the blood' by scientists who tasted patients' urine to detect diabetes—yes, really, that's how they diagnosed it before modern labs existed.
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