Femtech’s Dark Side: 2.2 Million Periods Tracked Without Real Health Impact
Despite Clue releasing a dataset covering 2.2 million cycles and collaborating with MIT on a new study, many of the conditions that most affect women’s health, such as endometriosis, PMDD, and PCOS, remain largely unexamined.
Clue has just released its year-end data set, revealing that millions of menstrual cycles have been tracked in 2025 alone. Users shared intimate details about pain, mood, libido, sex and period patterns.
Since 2016, the app has amassed data from millions of cycles worldwide, yet much of it has not been used to generate meaningful insights that could improve women’s health. The information exists, but it’s being channeled into studies that are safe, easy to publish and look impressive for tech and data science- not solving real clinical problems.
Millions of women track their menstrual cycles, mood changes, and symptoms daily. Apps promise insight, empowerment, and control. Yet, despite Clue releasing a dataset covering 2.2 million cycles and collaborating with MIT on a new study, many of the conditions that most affect women’s health, such as endometriosis, PMDD, and PCOS, remain largely unexamined.
The question is not whether these apps are collecting data. It is what they are doing with it and whether it is actually helping women.
The Study: Facts First
Clue’s study partnered with MIT and analyzed menstrual cycle patterns in relation to environmental factors, specifically air pollution.
Dataset: 2.2 million tracked menstrual cycles from 92,550 users across 230 cities in the USA, Mexico and Brazil (2016-2020) , millions of data points.
Methods: They analysed self-reported menstrual cycle data from millions of Clue users alongside estimates of long-term air polluton exposure.
Publication: The Lancet Planetary Health 2025
Findings: The study found that menstrual cycle length and timing sometimes appeared to vary with air pollution levels, but there is no evidence that pollution actually causes irregular periods.
While scientifically interesting, the focus raises a critical question: Why study environmental exposures instead of conditions that are immediate and clinically urgent for women?
The Clinical Gap
From a medical perspective, conditions like endometriosis, PMDD, PCOS, or irregular cycles are far more impactful on day-to-day health, fertility, and quality of life. These conditions are often underdiagnosed and poorly understood.
Femtech apps have the potential to help identify patterns and provide early warning signs. Research priorities like the Clue MIT study leave those opportunities largely unexplored.
The focus is often on what looks good externally, rather than what makes a real difference for women’s health.
Industry Patterns: Prestige Over Progress
Femtech, like many digital health industries, faces clear incentives.
Low-risk, publishable research ensures visibility and credibility without the complexity of clinically impactful studies.
Partnerships with prestigious institutions such as MIT boost brand image and investor interest.
Research complexity versus reward studies addressing endometriosis or PMDD are clinically important but harder to conduct, harder to publish, and may expose the app to regulatory oversight.
In short, the focus is often on what looks good externally, rather than what makes a real difference for women’s health.
Women’s Experience: The Emotional Reality
For the millions tracking cycles daily, the disconnect between collected data and meaningful health insight can be frustrating and alienating.
Women’s experiences, including painful periods, mood disorders, and reproductive concerns, are often invisible in app research. They provide data but rarely see results that directly improve their health outcomes.
SheRanked: A Medically Reviewed Solution
This is where Sheranked steps in. Our platform evaluates period and women’s health apps using clinically relevant criteria, prioritizing:
Evidence-based utility
Transparency in data use
Real-world health impact
We highlight which apps genuinely help women and are making a difference in women’s health.
Takeaways:
Clue’s dataset is impressive. The MIT study is academically rigorous. But for women tracking cycles, the outcomes do not yet match the promise.
Women deserve apps that translate data into meaningful health insight. That is the mission of Sheranked, helping you navigate femtech with a medically informed lens.