FemTech Startup Trying To Gauge Menstrual Blood Potential
TheBlood, a German startup featured in the Forbes under-thirty list, is trying to “unlock” the potential and possibilities of menstrual blood. The company has collected menstrual blood stored in menstrual cups at home. It’s now analyzing those samples to gauge the menstrual health of women.
The collected menstrual blood will be further assessed based on the “blood flow,” “amount of clots,” “viscosity,” and “color.” Though at a very nascent stage, it’s great that menstrual blood is emerging as a diagnostic tool for women’s health.
TheBlood has found a research partner in Charité, one of the biggest research hospitals in Europe. Isabelle Guenou, the co-founder and CEO of TheBlood, says that Charité has been keen to conduct research on menstrual blood for the longest time. But that has only become possible after more women started using menstrual cups instead of sanitary napkins and tampons.
About menstrual blood and its potential, it can be a powerful tool because it is filled with biomarkers. These biomarkers are crucial if you want to assess the functionalities of essential hormones and the presence/absence of necessary vitamins and minerals in an adequate amount.
Further, as many as three hundred different types of proteins are present in menstrual blood. The efficacy or functions of those proteins are yet to be known. Still, with constant research, their importance is likely to get revealed, making it possible to know more about the female body.
Menstrual blood is expected to match the success of a blood test in certain sections. But many questions arise, as in menstrual blood, a lot of tissues and fluids from the uterus are present. So, there are doubts regarding the correlation between the reports found in regular blood tests and menstrual blood.
The “Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the School of Medicine, Stanford University” has been conducting constant studies on this possibility of correlation. Correlations have been proved in biomarkers like cholesterol and creatinine. Results also look good in the measurement of HbA1c, essential for assessing the long-term blood sugar level regulation in people with diabetes.
Going forward, menstrual blood is likely to play an important role in assessing a woman’s issues related to infertility, “endometrial immune cells,” endometriosis, PMS, and human papillomavirus.
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