Menstruation & Memory: Can menstrual blood help treat Alzheimer’s Disease?
- esther9796
- Apr 9
- 7 min read
For many people who menstruate, a period can be a terrible experience. For a lot of us, periods are accompanied by cramps, nausea, fatigue, and a host of other debilitating symptoms. Despite the discomfort, regular menstruation is an important indicator of health for many people who menstruate. In addition to helping to detect health issues, scientists have recently found that stem cells found in menstrual blood can also help treat some diseases. In this post, we explore the link between menstruation and the race to find a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease.
What is menstruation?
Menstruation, or getting your period, is when the lining of the uterus breaks down. As the lining of the uterus sheds, menstrual blood (which is part blood and part tissue from the inside of the uterus) flows out of the body. Most people who menstruate tend to bleed for 3-7 days. This usually happens every 21-35 days and is triggered by changes in estrogen and progesterone hormone levels in the body. Anyone with a uterus can menstruate, but not everyone does!
For people who do menstruate, tracking periods and how they affect your body can be a useful, non-invasive way to monitor your health and identify any issues (1). Regular periods have been linked to improved bone, thyroid, and metabolic health, while irregular periods have been linked to conditions such as osteoporosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). If you are someone who menstruates, it can be helpful to keep track of your periods and any symptoms you have directly before, during, and after them. If you think something isn’t right, speak to your general practitioner (GP) or obstetrician. If you’re worried about doing that, perhaps our previous blog post on advocating for yourself in medical spaces can help.
What’s so special about menstrual blood?
Just like the blood in our arteries and veins, menstrual blood is made up of immune cells, proteins, and red blood cells. These components are generally found in lower concentrations in menstrual blood compared to the blood pumping around our bodies, but they are still in large enough amounts to be used as a non-invasive way to diagnose conditions such as cervical cancer, diabetes, and endometriosis (1). What makes menstrual blood extra special is that it also contains endometrial cells and stem cells. These stem cells, known as mesenchymal stem cells, are adult stem cells that can differentiate into a range of different types of cells:
Cardiomyocytic cells – these cells make up the heart (cardiac) muscles and are responsible for keeping the heart pumping
Respiratory epithelial cells – cells that line the respiratory tract and help to prevent infection by secreting mucus
Neurocytic cells – cells that make up neurons, which form part of your nervous system
Myocytic cells – cells that make up the muscles
Endothelial cells – cells that make up your blood and lymphatic vessels
Pancreatic cells – cells that make up pancreatic tissue
Hepatic cells – cells that make up liver tissue
Adipocytic cells – cells that store energy that make up the fatty tissue in the body
Osteogenic cells – cells that make up the bones
Over the last two decades, scientists have explored the potential clinical uses of mesenchymal stem cells from menstrual blood (2). The relative ease of collecting and creating large amounts of these versatile stem cells suggests that these cells have the potential to play a huge role in treating a range of medical conditions. Menstrual blood-derived stem cells have been used for a wide range of things over the years, from treating cardiac failure to liver disease and reducing inflammation in multiple sclerosis (3,4). Research even suggests that, like stem cells isolated from the placenta after childbirth, menstrual blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells can be used to create a bank of patient-specific tissues that can be kept for future use.
How can menstrual blood help treat Alzheimer’s Disease?
Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that mostly affects older adults. Symptoms of AD typically include memory loss, particularly for short-term memories, and cognitive dysfunction (5). No one is 100% sure what causes Alzheimer’s; however, some of the most popular theories include the production of large clumps of hyperphosphorylated tau and amyloid-beta proteins in the brain. In recent years, researchers have also started to explore the role of neuroinflammation in the onset and symptomology of AD (6).
A study by Yongjia Zhao and colleagues in China found that similarly to stem cells from bone marrow (7) and umbilical cord (8), menstrual blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells transplanted into the brains of mice with AD (also known as APP/PS1 transgenic mice (9,10)) led to improved memory and a significant reduction in amyloid plaques and hyperphosphorylated tau production (11). The study showed that mesenchymal stem cells stimulated the production of enzymes responsible for breaking down amyloid-beta proteins and increased the production of an inactive form of tau kinase GSK-3-beta, which reduced the hyperphosphorylation of tau. Transplantation of the stem cells also reduced the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which led to a decrease in neuroinflammation in the AD mouse brains.
Findings from this study and others like it suggest that menstrual blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells have the potential to play an important role in the race to treat and eventually find a cure for AD and other neurodegenerative diseases in humans in the future (3,5,12–18). However, before we get to that point, there are a few issues to iron out (1). As I mentioned before, menstrual blood is easy to collect using tools like the menstrual cup, which means anyone can do it. This means that there aren’t any standardised processes for collecting and processing menstrual blood samples. As the composition of menstrual blood can change depending on the health of the person producing it, there can also be huge differences between samples. As these stem cells haven’t been tried in humans yet, it’s unclear how they may interact with human immune systems.
Additionally, menstruation is attached to various levels of stigma around the world. Although there has been a huge effort to reduce this stigma, many people still think of menstruation as something to be ashamed of, and period poverty remains a struggle for many people. This stigma could mean that people may be reluctant to provide samples or participate in research involving menstrual blood-derived stem cells.
In conclusion, menstrual blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells have been used to help treat a range of medical conditions. Recent studies have shown that these stem cells can help reduce Alzheimer’s disease pathology by boosting the degradation of amyloid-beta plaques and inhibiting the hyperphosphorylation of tau proteins in mice brains. Mesenchymal stem cells have the potential to be a key player in the treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. There is still some work to be done to develop processes around the acceptance of using menstrual blood-derived stem cells in research, but the future is positive!
By Esther Ansah, Blog Writer
References
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