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It's long been suspected that there's a link between strenous exercise and the risk of developing motor neurone disease because it appeared to be more common in professional sportsmen and women than the wider populations. Now, scientists say there is a direct relationship. 

Professor Dame Pamela Shaw, Director of the Neuroscience Institute at Sheffield University and lead for the research, explains a gene which prevents the body from recovering after strenuous exercise can lead to the development of motor neurone disease in people that carry that gene.

Photo: A woman running on a route near a city Credit: Getty Images