Are menstrual cycles not natural and are they caused because the body is removing toxins? No, that's not true: "It is completely natural and it is essential," a physician and scientist told Lead Stories about the menstrual cycle. The claim that the menstrual cycle is due to the body removing toxins is not scientifically true, the expert said.
The claim appeared in a video on Facebook on March 7, 2023. The caption on the video as it opened read:
'Like I said before...Menstrual cycles aren't natural!!'
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Mar 15 20:59:56 2023 UTC)
The video is posted by Lamonte Mcintyre, using a January 14, 2023, video posted on TikTok by kiunaverse as his background. His claim that "menstrual cycles aren't natural" is false.
Lead Stories contacted Dr. Harvey Kliman a physician and research scientist in obstetrics, gynecology and the reproductive sciences at Yale University School of Medicine and the director of the Reproductive and Placental Research Unit. His research focus is on the relationship between getting pregnant and the endometrium as it changes through the menstrual cycle. He responded via telephone on March 15, 2023, denying the claims on the video:
It is completely natural and it is essential and it is intimately tied into the function of the uterus, which is the place of implantation of the growth of the embryo, the growth of the fetus and the delivery of a baby. So literally without the natural cycle, there would be no pregnancies.
Kliman explained why a menstrual cycle naturally occurs:
There is a cycle of hormones that are happening from the pituitary down to the ovary. And we call that actually the HPO access -- the hypothalamus in the brain to the pituitary to the ovary. And there is automatic hormones that are happening. And one of those hormones, in fact, is LH, luteinizing hormone. And LH only lasts for a certain amount of time. And it's LH that actually makes the ovary make the progesterone. So normally when there's no embryo that LH disappears, that's the normal cycle, it disappears, the progesterone levels drop and the endometrium sloughs because all the emergency things that are keeping it from sloughing are released without the progesterone.
In "The Normal Menstrual Cycle and the Control of Ovulation" on endotext.com:
Menstruation is the cyclic, orderly sloughing of the uterine lining, in response to the interactions of hormones produced by the hypothalamus, pituitary, and ovaries.
The TikTok video Mcintyre uses in his post shows a woman claiming that "bleeding every month is due to your body removing toxins" from your uterus.
Kliman responded, "No, no. That is completely absurd. It has nothing to do with toxins. There's zero biological possibility to that statement."
Mcintyre's profile does not indicate that he has any credentials in the fields of medicine or biology. In contrast, he identifies himself as a marketing specialist, a co-founder of a real estate group and an owner of a barbershop.
Mcintyre has shared false claims in the past. For example, he claimed that amygdalin, which turns into cyanide in the human body, is a "vitamin." A Lead Stories debunk of that claim is here. He also claimed women can "get pregnant by sunlight." Lead Stories debunked that claim here.
Medical misinformation and disinformation researchers have pointed out that reproductive health, including pregnancy and abortions, is one of the areas where false claims are very persistent.
