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While it's common knowledge that anti-depressants can cause sexual side effects, a new theory suggests they may also suppress feelings of love and romance. More »
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• Emily Blunt and John Krasinski: totally sitting in a tree, kissing and whatevs. Perez suggests "Bluntinski" as their celeb couple nickname, but we feel we can do better! How about Krunt? Or EmJo? [Perez]

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Jim Carrey is self-aware enough to know that he pulled a Tom Cruise last night by railing against anti-depression meds like Prozac, and yet, he spreads his completely unscientific opinion anyway. More »
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Women who take antidepressant fluoxetine (the generic name for Prozac) during pregnancy are four times as likely to give birth to babies with heart problems, according to reports, while women who take the anti-depressant paroxetine are three times as likely. A study, published in the current British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology says, “Further analysis showed a strong association between major heart anomalies and taking fluoxetine in the first trimester. Women who smoked more than 10 cigarettes a day also had more babies with heart anomalies. Women taking paroxetine or smoking less than ten cigarettes a day also faced elevated risks, but not to the same extent." [Science Daily] More »
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• Avril Lavigne teaches young girls the importance of narcissism. • Indianapolis is the most sexually satisfied city? Uh, okay. • France's only female 3-star chef is opening a cooking school in Valence. • Scientific breakthrough! Sexually inhibited women have a harder time getting off. • Men are the "vanilla gender" and are what female job performance is based on. • Women are often "being cheated" by microfinance programs, according to Time. We still gave to Kiva. • Prozac may cure lazy eye. • Accused rapists will not be prosecuted because the mentally disabled woman and alleged victim is not a "reliable" witness. • Almost 3,000 websites produce the bulk of child porn on the internet. More »
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A new study has emerged from England, questioning the efficacy of Prozac and other SSRIs. According to the lead researcher on the study, University of Hull Professor Irving Kirsch, "The difference in improvement between patients taking placebos and patients taking anti-depressants is not very great." The study concluded that "depressed people can improve without chemical treatments...[and] there seems little reason to prescribe anti-depressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments have failed to provide a benefit." And seriously? No shit. I thought we decided last month that Prozac, along with other anti-depressants, are over-prescribed, at least in the United States, by a health care system that does not provide the resources for talk-therapy. More »
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More from that Time magazine cover package about modern love: Being married is awesome. Just ask Miriam Kamin: Kamin went through some tough experiences: endometriosis, a divorce, single parenting. Then last year she got married, and now everything is A-OK! "I've struggled with depression for most of my life," she says. "Yet... I'm not on medication right now. I had no idea marriage was supposed to be this much fun." Is marriage the new Prozac? For some. For others, it's like joining a convent. Carrie Jones tells the Daily Mail she hasn't had sex with her husband in four years, and she doesn't want to. "It's a sort of 'Frigid Jones' Diary'," she says. More »
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A trio of first person accounts about depression are coming out this year in England, causing Guardian scribe Stephanie Merritt (an author of one of the three memoirs) to call 2008 the year of the female depression memoir. These three books, Elle editor Sally Brampton's Shoot the Damn Dog, Lorna Martin's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Merritt's own The Devil Within, recount battles with bipolar disorder, post-modern malaise, and run-of-the-mill crippling despair. The article describes depression as a "hidden epidemic," and while I'm not British, I find it hard to believe that depression is a brand new malady in English society. Merritt goes on to note that it's been 13 years since Elizabeth Wurtzel's infuriating yet affecting Prozac Nation was published; do any of these women actually have anything new or remotely interesting to say on the subject? More »
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Psychology Today has a trio of articles about antidepressants and love/sex that I feel uniquely qualified to comment on since I am both on antidepressants and in love (and having sex). [Braggart! -Ed.] The main article, "Sex, Love, and SSRIs" wonders whether selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (the class of drugs that includes Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and others ) "compromise the ability to feel love," because SSRIs inhibit dopamine, which is also responsible for the feelings of elation and ecstasy that accompany falling in love. The author uses the anecdotal evidence of "Megan," whose sexual side effects ruined her relationship with high school sweetheart "Neil." The anecdote felt so weak (a high school love affair dissipating when the pair goes to separate colleges? You don't say!) that I wasn't surprised when she also used a seemingly dubious statistic to back it up: "Approximately 70 percent of people taking SSRIs suffer from sexual side effects." More »
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