Menstrual cycle linked to lunar cycles

London:Researchers have used a smart phone app to analyse menstrual cycles of thousands of women and found a link between the menstrual and lunar cycles.

Researchers created a mobile app called Glow to let women track their cycles more accurately and found that periods were more likely to start near the new moon, with ovulation happening near the full moon. "Women are really poor at predicting their own menstrual cycles.

When we looked at what they said their cycles were and what the app recorded them as, there was a real difference," said lead researcher, Philip Chenette, who presented the study at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine's meeting in Hawaii.

The study used data on 39,451 cycles from 8,233 users of the app, 'The Times' reported.

Chenette said that the similarity in length between the moon's cycle and women's menstrual cycles was "curious". "That probably goes back to evolution. We used to live outside and were subject to cycles. It may have to do with our sensitivity to light. We make hormones related to daylight cycles and perhaps the full moon might produce elevation in hormones," Chenette said.