Glucose Monitors Transformed Diabetes – Is Hormone Scanning Next?

Continuous glucose monitors changed diabetes management by turning a twice-daily blood test into a live data stream. Patients who previously managed their condition through snapshots – a reading in the morning, a reading before bed – suddenly had a continuous picture of what their blood sugar was doing, how it responded to food, exercise, sleep and stress, and what the trends meant over days and weeks. The shift wasn’t only clinical, it was relational: between patients and their own bodies.

A new wave of femtech startups is now attempting something similar for women’s hormones. Companies including UK-based Level Zero are in clinical trials for patches that monitor progesterone, oestrogen and testosterone continuously throughout the day – the same hormones that fluctuate across the menstrual cycle, shift during perimenopause and govern much of the physiological experience of being a woman. The question the field is trying to answer is whether the CGM story can be repeated, and on what timeline.

What The CGM Parallel Actually Reveals

The glucose monitoring comparison is helpful, but only to a point. Glucose has one main variable; hormones have many, and they interact. What a continuous hormone patch would need to track, and what it would need to do with that data, is significantly more complex than mapping blood sugar against carbohydrate intake.

The use cases being explored most actively are the ones where the current standard of care is most obviously inadequate. Fertility tracking, where the difference between a positive and negative outcome can hinge on timing that daily urine tests can’t reliably capture. PCOS pattern recognition, where symptoms are highly variable and current diagnosis depends on a combination of imaging, blood tests and clinical judgement that takes time. Perimenopause, where hormonal shifts can begin years before a formal diagnosis is considered, and where many women’s symptoms are currently attributed to stress, anxiety or depression before hormonal change is explored. And HRT personalisation, where dosing is currently based on symptom management rather than real-time hormonal data.

These are the areas where continuous data could produce a real shift – not because the technology is new, but because the current alternatives are poor.

We asked experts closest to this category to weigh in.

Our Experts

• Dr Nadia Ahmad, Founder & Medical Director, The Weight Care Clinic
• Devlet Butaev, Founder, PeriodBro

Dr Nadia Ahmad, Founder & Medical Director, The Weight Care Clinic

“Continuous hormone monitoring could be transformative, but only if we are careful not to overpromise before the evidence is there.

“The parallel with CGMs is powerful because CGMs changed diabetes care by turning invisible fluctuations into real-time, actionable data. As someone living with Type 1 diabetes, I have seen first-hand how continuous data can transform decision-making and empower patients. Hormones are similar in that women are often treated based on snapshots, symptoms and delayed testing, despite hormones fluctuating throughout the day, the menstrual cycle and different life stages.

“The most promising early use cases are fertility tracking, PCOS pattern recognition, perimenopause and potentially HRT personalisation. In practice, this could help women understand whether symptoms, bleeding patterns, mood changes, sleep disturbance or metabolic changes correlate with hormonal shifts rather than being dismissed as vague or simply “part of being a woman”.

“However, hormones are more complex than glucose. Oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone vary according to age, cycle stage, medication use, sleep, stress, body composition and underlying health conditions. The clinical challenge will be proving that continuous data improves outcomes, not only curiosity. We need validated sensors, diverse clinical trials, clear reference ranges, robust regulation, clinician education and safeguards against anxiety, over-testing and unsupported wellness claims.

“If done properly, this could shift power towards women by giving them objective data about their own bodies. But the real breakthrough won’t be the patch itself. It will be the ability to turn that data into safe, clinically meaningful decisions that genuinely improve health outcomes.”

Devlet Butaev, Founder, PeriodBro

“The CGM revolution wasn’t only about better numbers. It was about handing a person real-time information about their own body. But a cycle isn’t lived in isolation. It’s lived next to a partner, a parent, a kid.

“Continuous hormone data would do for the people around a woman what CGMs did for a diabetic’s family – it turns “she’s just moody” into a pattern you can actually plan around. Right now the cycle is the most predictable signal in a household that nobody but the person menstruating can see. Real-time monitoring doesn’t just inform her doctor – it informs everyone who said they’d show up for her.

“The limitation nobody’s pricing in: the more continuous the data, the bigger the question of who else can read it. For diabetes that’s low-stakes. For a woman’s hormonal data in 2026, consent and privacy are the whole ballgame – and that’s the real gating factor before this scales the way CGMs did.”

For any questions, comments or features, please contact us directly.