ArticleScience advances2021
Women temporarily synchronize their menstrual cycles with the luminance and gravimetric cycles of the Moon.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- Proof of concept for a hypothesis that rapid cycling in a circular form of bipolar disorder is a pathological response to normal lunar cycles in sleep.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Evolutionary and physiological arguments for the existence of a circalunar clock in humans.BMC ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- Revitalizing the "biology" in "chronobiology".Npj biological timing and sleep · 2026Review
- Waning light, waxing pain: The lunar cycle's association with migraine headache occurrence.Headache · 2026Article
- Lunar gravity predicts sleep timing.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Global trends in human birth and death seasonality reveal climate-related shifts in reproductive timing.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- From nighttime light exposure to menstrual health: a critical review of evidence, mechanisms, and nursing interventions.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2026Review
- Integrative Network View of PCOS: Organ Crosstalk Driven by the Hyperandrogenemia-Insulin Resistance-Inflammation Triad.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Review
- Association between the lunar cycle and pregnancy at first artificial insemination of Holstein cows.JDS communications · 2025Article
- Career perspective.Npj biological timing and sleep · 2025Article
- The Never Given 2022 Pittendrigh/Aschoff Lecture: The Clock Network in the Brain-Insights From Insects.Journal of biological rhythms · 2025Article
- Time me by the moon : The evolution and function of lunar timing systems.EMBO reports · 2024Article
- Threatened chronotopes: can chronobiology help endangered species?Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2024Review
- Multi-year soundscape recordings and automated call detection reveals varied impact of moonlight on calling activity of neotropical forest katydids.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Evidence that the woman's ovarian cycle is driven by an internal circamonthly timing system.Science advances · 2024Article
- Review
- Depressive Symptoms in Expecting Fathers: Is Paternal Perinatal Depression a Valid Concept? A Systematic Review of Evidence.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Review
- A Cryptochrome adopts distinct moon- and sunlight states and functions as sun- versus moonlight interpreter in monthly oscillator entrainment.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Food Security and Nutrition as the Neglected Missing Links in Cultural Evolution: The Role of the Sociotype.Rambam Maimonides medical journal · 2022Review
- Iterative Metaplasticity Across Timescales: How Circadian, Ultradian, and Infradian Rhythms Modulate Memory Mechanisms.Journal of biological rhythms · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many species synchronize reproductive behavior with a particular phase of the lunar cycle to increase reproductive success. In humans, a lunar influence on reproductive behavior remains controversial, although the human menstrual cycle has a period close to that of the lunar cycle. Here, we analyzed long-term menstrual recordings of individual women with distinct methods for biological rhythm analysis. We show that women's menstrual cycles with a period longer than 27 days were intermittently synchronous with the Moon's luminance and/or gravimetric cycles. With age and upon exposure to artificial nocturnal light, menstrual cycles shortened and lost this synchrony. We hypothesize that in ancient times, human reproductive behavior was synchronous with the Moon but that our modern lifestyles have changed reproductive physiology and behavior.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.