Guwahati, Feb. 22 -- Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. All you need is love. It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

If cliches and pop songs are anything to go by, humans spend a substantial portion of waking and sleeping hours thinking and dreaming about the pursuit of love - in all its many forms.

But is love all pink hearts, roses and teddy bears - or is there a darker side? Can love, or the absence of love, generate a form of sickness? Can it even lead to lasting physical or mental illness? And is it possible to die of a broken heart?

Love can hurt. Ian McEwan framed a pathological form of affection, leading to obsession in his 1997 novel "Enduring Love". The cen...