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A team of reproductive researchers from several institutions in France and the United States has found that the timing of a woman's monthly ovarian cycle is likely due to circadian rhythms.in a paper published in a magazine scientific progressThe group describes its findings and a study of thousands of ovarian cycles reported by thousands of women in Europe and the United States.
The timing mechanism behind the ovarian cycle has puzzled scientists for centuries, but one of the most popular theories is that it is tied to the lunar cycle. Charles Darwin suggested that the two may have been linked when humans lived near the coast, when the tides had a big impact on their daily schedules.
Then, three years ago, a research team led by Würzburg chronobiologist Charlotte Förster found evidence that women's menstrual cycles are temporally synchronized with the lunar cycle. In this new effort, the researchers found little evidence of a lunar influence and suggested that circadian rhythms are the most likely mechanism controlling ovarian cycles.
Circadian rhythms are defined as the physical, mental, and behavioral changes that organisms, such as humans, experience over a 24-hour period. One of the most well-known behaviors influenced by circadian rhythms is sleep. People tend to feel sleepy at the same time every night. However, it has also been noted that circadian rhythms can be influenced by the lunar cycle, with people going to bed later and, for example, sleeping less on the night before a full moon. .
To learn more about the mechanisms that control ovarian cycles, the research team obtained the medical records of more than 3,000 women living in Europe and North America. It contained data on 27,000 ovarian cycles. The researchers tracked the first day of each cycle for all women in the study. In doing so, they found that there was little correlation between the cycle start time and the lunar cycle.
But researchers discovered something else. Many examples of what they describe as “phase jumps” are when something disrupts the timing of a particular woman's menstrual cycle, and the body reacts by changing its clock rhythm over a period of several months, causing the cycle to return to normal. The goal is to return to the standard. They compare it to the circadian rhythm response to people experiencing jet lag. This indicates that circadian rhythms are likely the mechanism controlling ovarian cycles, they suggest.
For more information:
René Ecochard et al. Evidence that the female ovarian cycle is driven by an internal approximately monthly timing system, scientific progress (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adg9646
Magazine information:
scientific progress
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