Quantitative Concept
international unit Audio
in·ter·na·tion·al u·nit [ in-ter-na-shuh-nul yoo-nit ]
Definitions related to international unit:
  • A unit used to measure the activity of many vitamins, hormones, enzymes, and drugs. An IU is the amount of a substance that has a certain biological effect. For each substance there is an international agreement on the biological effect that is expected for 1 IU.
    NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms
    U.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
  • An internationally accepted amount of a substance based on its biological activity or effect; used as a measurement for fat-soluble vitamins.
    Harvard Dictionary of Health Terms
    Harvard Medical Publishing, 2011
  • The unitage assigned by the WHO to International Biological Standards - substances, classed as biological according to the criteria provided by WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization (e.g. hormones, enzymes, and vaccines), to enable the results of biological and immunological assay procedures to be expressed in the same way throughout the world. The definition of an international unit is generally arbitrary and technical, and has to be officially approved by the International Conference for Unification of Formulae.
    NCI Thesaurus
    U.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
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