Antidepressants Affect Feelings of Love for Partner
Antidepressants Affect Feelings of Love for Partner
By Agata Blaszczak-Boxe, Contributing Writer | August 08, 2014 01:13pm ET
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Credit: Johan Larson/Shutterstock.com
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Taking antidepressants may affect people's feelings of love and attachment, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that
men's feelings of love
tended to be affected more than women's by taking antidepressants
called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which work
mainly through the serotonin system. In contrast, drugs called tricyclic
antidepressants, which affect the serotonin system less, seem to affect
women's feelings of love more than men's, the researchers said.
"The good news is that there are a variety of agents for
treating depression," said study author Dr. Hagop S. Akiskal, a distinguished professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego.
In the study, researchers compared the effects of SSRIs and tricyclic
antidepressants on the love lives of 192 people with depression — 123
women and 69 men — whose mean age was 41. The study included 13 people
who were homosexual. All the people in the study said they had been in
loving relationships for between seven months and 26 years.
"Indeed, our subjects were those who could be properly considered smitten by love," Akiskal told Live Science. [
13 Scientifically Proven Signs You're in Love]
The participants filled out a questionnaire that examined their
feelings of love, attachment and sexual attraction to their partners
throughout their relationships. On the questionnaire, the participants
addressed whether their feelings were different after they started
taking antidepressants, compared with before.
When the researchers looked at all the study participants, they found
that those taking SSRIs were more likely to say they felt less at ease
with sharing their partners' thoughts and feelings, and less wishful
that their love for their partner would last forever since they started
taking their medication, compared with the people taking tricyclics.
They also found the men in the study taking SSRIs reported being less
likely to ask their partners for help or advice, or take care of their
partners, compared with women who had been taking SSRIs.
On the other hand, women who had been taking tricyclics were more likely to complain about
disturbances in their sex life than men who had been taking tricyclics.
The investigators were inspired to conduct the new study after their
previous research with people in romantic relationships and those
suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder found that "serotonin
function was more deviant in a
state of romantic love, than in obsessive compulsive disorder," Akiskal said.
It is important that patients with depression communicate openly with their physicians about how they are feeling, he said.
"Certainly, a physician should always inquire whether there is any
impairment in the love life during depressive illness, because the loss
of sexual desire and sexual feelings are common manifestations of
depressive illness itself," he said.
The study was published in the September issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.
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