Looking for #womenshealth information on Instagram? 4 out of 10 posts are ads

RossHelen/Getty A woman in her 40s scrolls through Instagram.

Between photos of friends, recipes and holiday snaps, she comes across a video about perimenopause.

The woman on screen explains perimenopause is to blame for feeling tired, having trouble remembering things, struggling to sleep or gaining weight.

Another post promises to “balance” her hormones.

A third recommends a supplement that could help her symptoms.

All this advice feels personal, reassuring and easy to understand.

It provides a simple explanation and potential solution to help her feel a bit more vibrant.

But what’s really behind these types of posts? We set up a new Instagram account to find out.

What did we do? Women are increasingly turning to social media for information about their health.

But we know surprisingly little about the broader mix of content they encounter.

So, late last year, we created a new Instagram account, searched #womenshealth and sampled the first 500 posts that appeared in the feed.

At the time there were more than 8.8 million posts under this hashtag.

Now there are 9.6 million.

After removing duplicates and faulty links, we had a final sample of 472 posts.