It’s a topic that makes men around the world apprehensive, but it could end up saving their lives.
Scientists trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s are experimenting with an unlikely new source: menstrual blood.
Perhaps it is possible to “superfeed” a periodic, shape-changing type of cell that can become any cell in the body.
In the case of Alzheimer’s, these cells can transform into neurons and glial cells, which are damaged and die when the disease takes hold, causing the memory loss and reduced cognitive functioning seen in patients.
Studies on the use of menstrual blood began in 2007 after experts first determined that blood shed during the monthly cycle contains stem cells.
A more recent study found that stem cell therapy using menstrual blood stem cells, or ‘MenSC’, eliminated protein deposits between neurons and improved memory in mice with Alzheimer’s.
Furthermore, MenSCs are more available than the bone marrow currently used in the process.
Doctoral researcher Alice van der Schoot has hailed MenSCs as a “game changer” because they double 19 hours faster, compared to two to eight days for those extracted from bone marrow.
Alzheimer’s causes abnormal protein deposits called plaques to build up inside the brain and disrupt cellular function. Over time, this significantly impairs brain functions such as memory, thinking and reasoning and ultimately leads to death.

In a recent TikTok video, Alice van der Schoot, a doctoral research scientist and founder of menstrual research company DITTO, said that menstrual blood contains “supercharged” stem cells.
Alzheimer’s causes deposits of abnormal proteins called plaques to build up inside the brain, damaging cells and altering their functionality.
Over time, this significantly impairs brain functions such as memory, thinking and reasoning and ultimately leads to death.
Stem cell therapy is used to treat many types of diseases, including autoimmune, inflammatory, neurological, and orthopedic conditions, as well as traumatic injuries.
The recent study, published by Chinese scientists at Zhejiang University in 2018, isolated cells in MenSC that were then injected into the brains of mice, inhibiting a process that releases a harmful protein considered the cause of Alzheimer’s.
They used stem cells extracted from menstrual blood samples donated by “healthy women” who volunteered to participate.
The researchers isolated these stem cells and cultured them before injecting them directly into the brains of mice expressing two human genes known to cause Alzheimer’s.
After treatment, the researchers stained the mice’s brains with a fluorescent dye to monitor for any changes.
This allowed them to see how the amount of plaque, or harmful protein, in the animals’ brains had changed after receiving menstrual stem cell therapy, and they found that areas of plaque were significantly reduced.

One study found that the menstrual stem cell family decreased brain plaque and restored some cognitive function in mice with Alzheimer’s disease.
They also evaluated changes in the mice’s memory function and spatial learning abilities.
To do this, they used a water maze test, where mice had to swim through a puddle of opaque water to find a submerged platform.
This tested their ability to know where the platform was and remember how they found it.
The animals that Women who had received menstrual stem cell therapy found the platform much faster than those who did not, suggesting that some of their memory and spatial learning abilities had been restored.
These results are encouraging, but researchers will have to test menstrual stem cell therapy in human cases of Alzheimer’s before this treatment can be prescribed to patients.
There have been some small but promising clinical trials showing that MenSCs can be implanted in humans without adverse side effects, but the research still has a long way to go.
That said, getting MenSC approved for use in humans would open up a whole new world of opportunities for regenerative medicine, experts say.
“Stem cells are a promising new class of therapies that have the potential to revolutionize the way a variety of disease states are treated,” said Jonathan Anderson, a stem cell scientist at the University of California and CEO of Peptide Systems. news week.
Dr David Woznica, regenerative medicine doctor at Woz Wellness, said: ‘Probably the biggest advantage of menstrual blood stem cells is how easy they are to obtain; no invasive procedures are required.
“The stem cells present in menstrual blood are similar to those present in bone marrow, although they are capable of proliferating more than their bone marrow counterparts, and there is approximately two to four times greater production of stem cells in menstrual blood than in an equivalent volume of bone marrow,” he added.
In addition to their potential to treat Alzheimer’s, Woznica said MenSCs could eventually help doctors address inflammation in autoimmune conditions, repair or prevent damage to heart tissue after heart attacks, treat lung injuries, and more.