People who taka SSRI antidepressants experience romantic love in the same way as other people, an international study has found. These results may convince people who have previously avoided pharmacotherapy to seek help for depression.
280 million people worldwide struggle with depression. However, most of those affected do not seek medical help.
Depression can also affect people who are in love, in happy romantic relationships. Sometimes they put off treatment due to fear that their feelings will weaken as a result of pharmacotherapy. New research suggests that this should not be a cause for concern.
In the treatment of depression, the most common first-line drugs are SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors).
'The number of people using SSRIs continues to grow worldwide. However, there is a persistent belief that using these drugs can interfere with the sphere of love. We have provided evidence to dispel this myth. SSRIs are an invaluable aid, well worth using - without worrying about how it will affect love', one of the authors of the study, Marta Kowal, PhD, from the University of Wrocław, summarises in a commentary for PAP.
'We used binary logistic regression to test the hypotheses that SSRI use would be associated with less intense romantic love, less frequent obsessive thinking about a loved one, less commitment, and less frequent sexual activity. None of our hypotheses were supported', the researchers summarise their conclusions in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
The study was conducted on a group of over 800 young adults from over 30 countries, who were experiencing romantic love. Marta Kowal was one of the authors of the study.
SSRIs include paroxetine, citalopram, fluvoxamine, sertraline and fluoxetine. Thanks to them, the neurotransmitter naturally produced in the brain - serotonin, figuratively called the hormone of happiness - stays longer between the synapses of nerve cells. This improves the flow of information from one cell to the next. In this way, SSRIs help treat depression by increasing the availability of serotonin in the synaptic gaps and modulating neurotransmission.
However, it remained an open question how changing the serotonin system would affect some complicated but pleasant states that people experience, such as the feeling of romantic love.
The side effects reported in the use of SSRIs include emotional numbness and sexual dysfunctions, including a decrease in sexual drive. These factors can translate into the feeling of love.
Can drugs popular in the treatment of depression 'clip the wings' of butterflies in the stomach? Do they add bricks to the backpack when someone feels like floating half a meter above the ground? Do they reduce the number of thoughts that a person in love directs to the other person to 'reasonable' levels? Do these drugs inhibit sexual attraction to a partner? There have been no empirical studies on this subject so far.
In a large international Love Survey, the researchers analysed the responses of people who declared that they were taking SSRIs and were in a romantic relationship of less than two years.
These responses were compared with the responses of people from a control group who also experienced romantic love but who did not take SSRIs. It turned out that when it comes to the experience of love, these groups did not differ from each other. People from both groups spent a similar amount of time thinking about the other person (on average: 49 percent of time during the day). They declared a similar frequency of having sex (on average 3.2 times per week). They also scored similarly on the scales of intensity of romantic love and commitment to the relationship.
This shows that SSRIs do not stand in the way of love.
PAP - Science in Poland, Ludwika Tomala
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