Hey, this is Flor Lixman and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today in the show, the science of SSRI withdrawal and why it continues to be a subject of hot debate among physicians and patients.

So what I would say is that the available data is not methodologically strong enough that there's a consensus in the field.

Roughly one in ten Americans take antidepressants. The most common types are SSRIs or selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors.

Think Prozac, Lexapro, Zoloft.

But what happens when you stop taking them?

There's an ongoing debate among physicians and patients about the severity and prevalence of SSRI withdrawal symptoms.

And discourse reached a fever pitch when HHS Secretary Kennedy compared

SSRI withdrawal to heroin withdrawal. So there have been studies, but they sometimes

contradict each other and the takeaway isn't so clear. Joining me now to discuss the issue and

dig into the data on SSRI withdrawal are my guests. Dr. Avaze Aftab, clinical

associate professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University based in Cleveland, Ohio,

and Dr. Mark Horowitz, Clinical Research Fellow in the UK's National Health Service and Scientific

co-founder of Outro Health. He's based in London, England. I want to welcome you

both to Science Friday. Thanks for having us on. Yeah, thank you. It seems like there's a lot of

disagreement about this issue, about SSRI withdrawal. I mean, is it lighting up the psychiatry

community? Are researchers arguing about this in hotel ballrooms somewhere of Ace?

Yeah, I mean, I would say there's a pretty heated debate going on.

And I think a fundamental problem is that we have a relative lack of good research and good data,

especially about long-term outcomes.

I think some of the most interesting and intense

debates are happening online at the moment. Mark, this is personal for you. I mean, this is

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