Dr. Richard Walker of University of South Florida College of Medicine, who has been fascinated by the topic of aging since his undergraduate days, is comparing Gabby’s genetic code to another a 19-year-old girl, Brooke Greenberg of Baltimore, who has the same condition.
He wants to figure out not only what is wrong with these children, but learn if others in the family could pass on genes for this bizarre disorder.
A case has been reported that an eight year old girl does not age.
There have been reported cases of people not showing visible signs of Aging.
Genetic Scientists are trying to find and break the Genetic code. .
Or is it a disease?
Opinion is divided.
Story:
Gabby Williams has the facial features and skin of a newborn, and she is just as dependent. Her mother feeds, diapers and cradles her tiny frame as she did the day she was born.
The little girl from Billings, Mont., is 8 years old, but weighs only 11 pounds. Gabby has a mysterious condition, shared by only a handful of others in the world, that slows her rate of aging.
For the past two years, a doctor who has been trying to find the genetic off-switch to stop the aging process has been studying Gabby, as well as two other people who have striking similarities…
A 29-year-old Florida man has the body of a 10-year-old, and a 31-year-old Brazilian woman is the size of a 2-year-old. Like Gabby, neither seems to grow older.
Unraveling what these three people may have in common is the subject of a TLC television special, “40-Year-Old Child: A New Case,” which airs Monday, Aug. 19, at 10 p.m. ET. The show is a follow-up to Gabby’s story, which aired last year.
“In some people, something happens to them and the development process is retarded,” said medical researcher Richard F. Walker. “The rate of change in the body slows and is negligible.”
It seems like Gabby Williams has been a newborn forever, and she has. She still wears diapers and nurses every three hours.
But the little Montana girl with the long hair is 6 years old. As each of her younger siblings were born and grew into toddlers and then developed into older children, she stayed the same.
A normal 6-year-old would weigh an average of 46 pounds and be about four feet tall. Gabby is 10 pounds and only about 24 inches long.
“She had all her medical tests when she was first born and they couldn’t find anything,” said Gabby’s mother, Mary-Margret Williams, 37, who lives with her family in a suburb of Billings, Mont.
Her condition — so rare that there is no name for it — will be showcased in “My 40-Year-Old Child,” a one-hour TLC documentary that airs Sunday night at 9 p.m.
The film follows Gabby and her family, as well as Nicky Freeman, a middle-aged Australian in the body of a 10-year-old, as they try to unravel the medical mystery.
They are Benjamin Button children — only about a half dozen of them in the world, who age only one year for every four in the life of a normal human being. And so far, doctors can find nothing wrong with them.
Visit the Links for more Videos.
Source.
Why the ‘Benjamin Button’ children never age.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/40-year-child-benjamin-button-children-grow-age/story?id=12724960
http://gma.yahoo.com/8-old-11-pounds-never-ages-040317717–abc-news-health.html
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Progeria (pronunciation: /proʊˈdʒɪəriə/[1][2]), Hutchinson Gilford Progeria Syndrome,[3][4] or Progeria syndrome[4]) is an extremely rare genetic disease wherein symptoms resembling aspects of aging are manifested at a very early age. The word progeria comes from the Greek words “pro” (πρό), meaning “before” or “premature”, and “gēras” (γῆρας), meaning “old age“. The disorder has a very low incident rate, occurring in an estimated 1 per 8 million live births.[5] Those born with progeria typically live to their mid teens and early twenties.[6][7] It is a genetic condition that occurs as a new mutation, and is rarely inherited. Although the term progeria applies strictly speaking to all diseases characterized by premature aging symptoms, and is often used as such, it is often applied specifically in reference to Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS).
Scientists are particularly interested in progeria because it might reveal clues about the normal process of aging.[8][9][10] Progeria was first described in 1886 by Jonathan Hutchinson.[11] It was also described independently in 1897 by Hastings Gilford.[12] The condition was later named Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS).
This is disputed.
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