From the 47-year-old runner who needs a double hip replacement to the 27-year-old CrossFitter with a ruptured ACL, those who push their bodies too hard often regret it. What are the lessons for the rest of us?

Jonathan Price has always been active and exercise-focused. Growing up in south Wales, rugby was his first love. Through school, university and beyond, he also surfed, rowed, played squash and ran competitively – on track, in 10k races and cross-country. Career and family demands meant that much of this fell away in later years, but the running stuck. He found time for marathons, half marathons – “I’d run a half marathon every weekend just for fun,” he says – and, through the working week, regular 30- or 40-minute runs to manage stress and clear his head. “I travel a lot for work,” says Price, now 50, a company CEO. “With running, all you need is a pair of running shoes and you can do it anywhere.”

By his mid-40s, though, Price’s body was beginning to object. He wasn’t recovering so well. “I could run just fine but I’d be in pain for two or three days afterwards,” he says. On top of this, every six months or so, his lower back seemed to seize up completely. A physiotherapist thought it was “tight hip flexors” and pointed Price towards “hip opening” exercises, designed to reduce stiffness and increase range of motion. Someone else prescribed him muscle relaxants, but the pain only deepened, and his range of movement continued to dip. Finally, in the summer of 2023, a chance encounter with a hip surgeon led to the diagnosis of osteoarthritis and, at the end of that year, Price, then 47, had a double hip replacement.

Scientists developing vaccines and anti-tick treatments amid growing concern over spread of disease

Cases of Lyme disease have risen more than 20% in England in the past year, public health experts have revealed, as pharmaceutical companies work to create new vaccines and drugs to tackle the tick-borne illness.

According to data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), published as part of its One Health vector-borne disease surveillance report, there were 1,168 laboratory-confirmed cases of Lyme disease in 2025, up from 959 in 2024 – an increase of 22%. However, the figure is similar to that recorded in 2023, when there were 1,151 confirmed cases.

People with meniscus tears who underwent surgery had poorer knee function and worse osteoarthritis after 10 years than those who did not

A common knee surgery for cartilage damage does not benefit patients and may lead to worse outcomes, a 10-year trial suggests.

The study tracked outcomes for patients treated for a meniscus tear, who were given a partial meniscectomy, one of the most common orthopaedic surgeries. Their trajectories were compared with patients who had randomly been assigned to receive “sham surgery”, in which no procedure was carried out.