Menstruation has been a monthly reality for half the population for millennia, so you’d think we’d have a pretty solid scientific grasp on period blood by now. Nope. Despite humanity’s incredible medical advances, women’s health and the female body, menstrual blood included, have been neglected in the scientific literature until relatively recently.
Part of the lack of research on menstrual blood is due to the periods being taboo, but that was not always the case everywhere. Some the historical record on periods is mixed, some ancient cultures saw menstruation as magical and powerful. Ancient Roman author Pliny the Elder even wrote that “a menstruating woman who uncovers her body can scare away hailstorms, whirlwinds, and lightning.”
While that’s obviously (and sadly) not true, scientists are discovering that periods may hold more power than people think. And not in some woo-woo kind of way, but in a genuine, medically significant way. Here are a few examples:
Period blood speeds wound healing
Dr Jemma Evans at Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, led a 2018 study on plasma derived from menstrual fluid to see if it could help with skin repair.
“Few tissues in the human body promote scar-free wound healing in the same way as the womb. We wanted to test if we could apply these amazing endometrial repair properties to a tissue that is difficult to repair – the skin,” she said.
Essentially, the uterus wounds and repairs itself every month, and it does the repair part exceptionally well. The researchers found that the proteins in menstrual fluid have a more complex makeup than plasma derived from blood. That appears to make a difference.
“In wounds made in human skin cells, plasma derived from menstrual fluid brought about complete repair, or 100 per cent healing in 24 hours, compared with about 40 per cent healing observed when using human blood plasma to mimic normal wound healing,” Dr Evans said.
Menstrual blood could be used to screen for cervical cancer without a Pap smear
A 2025 study examined the possibilities of using menstrual blood as a diagnostic tool.
“For disease diagnosis, MB offers a noninvasive sampling method for identifying biomarkers in endometriosis, cervical cancer, and other gynecological conditions,” the study authors wrote.
Cervical cancer is usually screened for with a Pap smear, which any woman will tell you is anything but noninvasive. Lying spread-eagled, feet in stirrups, having a speculum inserted so a doctor can scrape your cervix for a tissue sample isn’t fun. And as the study authors point out, such screenings have high false positive rates. Sampling from menstrual blood (MB) instead appeared to have better results without the invasiveness of a Pap smear.
“Compared with conventional cervical smears, MB-based testing achieved 97.7% sensitivity, identifying additional HPV genotypes, multiple infections, and true-negative cases,” the study states. “It also accurately detected high-risk HPV in routine false-negative test results.”
Period blood can also help with diagnosing endometriosis
Endometriosis is a condition in which cells similar to the lining of the uterus grow outside of the uterus. It can cause heavy periods, pelvic pain, and fertility issues. According to the Cleveland Clinic, endometriosis affects 1 in 10 females worldwide.
A Penn State University professor has taken emerging research on detecting endometriosis from menstrual blood to the next level. Professor Dipanjan Pan developed a proof-of-concept, at-home device that can detect in menstrual blood a protein implicated in endometriosis development. Not only that, but it detects the protein with 500% more sensitivity than existing laboratory approaches.
Those usual approaches usually include lab analyses of intravenous blood, imaging studies, and an extensive collection of patient history. All of that can take a lot of time. Pan’s method simply involves putting menstrual blood on a test strip, which darkens if the suspected protein is present. Dr. Pan is working on honing the device for even greater sensitivity to detect endometriosis earlier, but what a development. She also hopes to expand the test to also detect HPV and cervical cancer.
Stem cells from period blood may help with all kinds of medical problems
Seriously, though, isn’t period blood starting to sound awesome? It gets better. Even though it took until 2007 to discover stem cells in period blood, we now know it may be a valuable (and easily accessible) source for stem cell-based therapies to treat various medical conditions.
“Therapeutically, stem cells derived from MB (menstrual blood-derived stem cells, MenSCs) exhibit pluripotency, high proliferative capacity, and low immunogenicity, positioning them as promising candidates in regenerative medicine,” the study authors write. “Preclinical and clinical studies have demonstrated the efficacy of MenSCs in treating infertility, premature ovarian insufficiency, intrauterine adhesions, hepatic disorders, cutaneous injuries, and neurological diseases.”
Even neurological diseases? How? Apparently, MenSCs can inhibit neuroinflammation, which often accompanies neurological and psychiatric diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), depression, schizophrenia, sepsis-associated encephalopathy, and intracerebral haemorrhage. According to a 2023 study, transplanting MenSCs intravenously alleviated the inflammatory response in brains of mice with neuroinflammation.
Basically, we’re just beginning to have a scientific understanding of the power of the period and the blood it releases. We may not stop hailstorms, but perhaps we can do something even better with our monthly flow.
