Menstrual Blood: “The Most Overlooked Opportunity in Medical Research”
By: Madeline Riske // October 2025
Dr. Sara Naseri calls period blood “the most overlooked opportunity in medical research” in Mother Jones’ Editor Maddie Oatman’s report on why menstrual an undervalued asset for science and medicine is.
Now, when you first read that statement, how did you feel? Can I guess that you might have cringed slightly at that statement or felt some sense of discomfort? Your possible negative reaction most likely comes from historically held beliefs that have prevented the potential investigation of menstrual blood’s use in science. Oatman notes that every major religion reference menstruation as “impure” and, even in our modern world, there is a stigma attached to talking about periods. Oatman spoke with researcher and Co-founder of Qvin, Dr. Sara Naseri, who said that, when she began looking at the clinical potential of menstrual blood, a colleague studying feces told her that what she was doing was “disgusting.” Yet, researchers are pushing back against this continued stigma to explore the medical possibilities of period blood.
You might be wondering, how could menstrual blood aid the practice of medicine? According to a BMC article, “Human menstrual blood: a renewable and sustainable source of stem cells for regenerative medicine,” stem cells (SCs) play an integral role in medical treatments that use cells or tissues derived from patient’s own body or from a healthy donor. Menstrual blood has been found to be a valuable source of SCs, respectively referred to as menstrual blood-derived stem cells (MenSCs). The article finds that the practical advantages of using MenSCs include lower costs, non-invasive retrieval from the body, and the absence of ethical concerns. In the clinical trials of MenSCs, there were favorable outcomes in the reproductive, digestive, cardiovascular, nervous, Musculoskeletal, and respiratory systems. MenSCs provide therapeutic benefits in more ways than just their ability to mature into different cell types; they fight inflammation, stimulate the body’s repair processes, and merge with damaged cells to promote regeneration.
While more studies are still required to see if there are any further systems where MenSCs could be helpful, some of this research is already being put into practice at startups like Qvin that are using period blood for medical research. As Oatman explains, Qvin created the Q-Pad, an innovated new pad that collects menstrual blood to be tested for different biomarkers or signals of disease. The Q-Pad functions like a normal menstrual pad, but inside the pad, there is a small paper strip which the user ships to Qvin’s labs. In the lab, the blood is then dried and analyzed to help diagnose a few types of diabetes. Oatman shares, “So far, they only have FDA clearance on the blood glucose test, but they say that they’re going to be able to use this pad and this test to screen for HPV, which is responsible for 95% of cervical cancers.” Currently, menstruators are tested for cervical cancer through pap smears but being able to collect that fluid passively could offer a promising alternative.
Oatman is hopeful that future research will enable menstrual blood to be used to test for fertility hormones and endometriosis. At Love for Red, we are equally encouraged to see continued efforts to break the stigma surrounding periods, paving the way for greater access to medical care and opportunities.
Sources:
https://stemcellres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13287-018-1067-y