14 DAY TRIAL // After one year in a stable relationship, you can try to fuel the fire of love once more, but it might be futile.
Italian researchers at University of Pavia have discovered that powerful emotions felt by people who are in love are caused by a molecule called NGF (nerve growth factor) whose quantity is not constant.
Researchers monitored the NGF quantity in blood for 58 persons who had just fallen in love and compared it to that recorded for single persons and for those who had been involved in a long-term relationship.
The result was that for those who were in love, the quantity of NGF was much higher than for those in the second category. On the other hand, after being for one year with the same person, the quantity of the molecule dropped to the level recorded for single persons and for those who had been involved in a long-term relationship.
Study co-author, Piergluigi Politi, said that it did not mean people were no longer in love, just that it was not such an "acute love".
According to what he told BBC, it seems that the romantic part of the love between two persons vanishes after approximately one year.
He also said biochemical mechanisms could be involved in the mood changes that occur from the early stage of love to when the relationship becomes more established.
This might explain why the feeling of love between two persons fluctuates so much. Everybody has heard about couples which break up and stop seeing each other for months or years, only to relight the love flame (which may be smothered again eventually).