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........

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