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Comments: 599 +-   Doctors Baffled, Intrigued By Girl Who Doesn't Age on Friday June 26, @09:29AM

Posted by kdawson on Friday June 26, @09:29AM
from the fountain-of-youth-or-maybe-it's-a-cataract dept.
medicine
science
phyrebyrd writes "Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler. She turned 16 in January. Brooke hasn't aged in the conventional sense. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke's body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why. Brooke's hair and her nails are the only two things that grow, Howard said. 'She has pajamas and outfits that are 10 or 12 years old,' he said."
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  • by cml4524 (1520403) on Friday June 26, @09:34AM (#28482191)

    It just struck me reading that... it must really, REALLY suck being the first person to ever have a particular disease.

    • Oh, grow up!
    • by vertinox (846076) on Friday June 26, @10:02AM (#28482833)

      It just struck me reading that... it must really, REALLY suck being the first person to ever have a particular disease.

      What if we have it backwards?

      What if she is the first person not to have the disease we all have and that she is aging but really really slow?

      So in 100 years she will have the body of an 18 year old?!

      I mean if you think about it, old age is a disease.

      • Meh, she'd still accumulate cellular damage and die of cancer eventually. Heart disease would also still be a possibility.

        She'd probably die at 85 of pancreatic cancer or something, but look good doing it.

      • Old age is a feature, not a bug. With less turn-over it would be difficult to life as a whole to adapt to changing environment. It has drawbacks as knowledge lost by the dead individual. Advanced life forms overcome that with culture.

        Earlier simpler life forms probably lacked the aging feature, and were superseded by others who had it.

        • Another way of looking at aging is that the evolutionary race is to have children, as many as possible, as quickly as possible. Animals who sacrifice their long-term prospects in favor of getting to reproductive age more quickly, are likely to be highly competitive. There are a lot of biologists who claim there isn't any reason humans can't live as long as Galapagos Tortoises (who seem to live 200 or 300 years) but our environment doesn't select for old age. Anything you do after you've had some kids is just noise, as far as evolution is concerned. (Until, as you say, you develop culture and/or spend time caring for relatives' children, which tends to propagate your genes in a more diffuse manner.)
            • If I had a social engineering rifle, I'd be going through a lot of ammo...
              But I think we *have* created an environment that does, by building such intricate communities and engaging so heavily in health care and stuff. There are very, very, very few animals that have longer average lifespans than humans. (Sharks, tortoises, and possibly some parrots, are the only ones that come to mind, and I *believe* those are mostly because those are animals that have little predation in their natural environments, so they have less need to reproduce as quickly as possible.)
              One thing about evolution that isn't well-understood by the world at large, is that it has to work with what it currently has. Humans aren't likely to develop the ability to see electric fields any time soon, because there's no existing framework. We have trillions of generations of ancestors focussed on reproducing quickly because they lived in environments where that was favored. It's difficult to find a path that diverges from such a strong existing trend: there's very little to work with.
              Plus, there are a number of different aging mechanisms. It's a weakest-link-of-the-chain sort of situation. The mechanisms tend to all equilibrate at one general area, as a result of neutral genetic drift (if one aging mechanism tends to kill people at 90 and another at 140, the one at 140 has nothing pushing it to stay there so it can drift down to 90 without affecting anything; over time it will probably tend to do this. Repeat with a half-dozen mechanisms that seem to be indicated in aging.)

              Which is all a very long way of saying that I'm guessing we're in an ecological niche that does select for longer lifespans, and we're seeing the results of it, but our genes don't give evolution a lot of material to work with so we might not get much more than we currently have.
        • Many of those "earlier simpler life forms" are still around and doing fine. Bacteria, most notably.
      • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26, @10:21AM (#28483195)

        What if we have it backwards?

        What if she is the first person not to have the disease we all have and that she is aging but really really slow?

        It's like I've been saying- you kids are going _way_ too fast!

        Now, get off my lawn!

    • by crmarvin42 (652893) on Friday June 26, @10:28AM (#28483353)
      I went to HS with a girl who's older brother was the first ever case of a genetic disorder.

      I can't remember their family name but it was named after her older brother, and she had it too. AFAIK, she and her brother are the only 2 documented cases of the disorder. They both had severe scoliosis, a lot of pain, some immune system disorders, and their abdomens were very short when compaired to the rest of their bodies (due to the scoliosis of the spine I assume). Having a disease named after their family was definitely not any sort of consolation either. She graduated first in her class, so it probably won't interfere with the rest of her life. She'll probably just have to explain about it to everyone she meets, and have some medical complications as she gets older and decides whether or not to have kids.
  • She must've drank from it by mistake. This is why Moms should be attentive of their children!

    Seriously, age is a really interesting field to me, especially cognitive age. I really like how there are stages in raising a child that, if followed honestly, usually lead to children becoming very capable, healthy adults. What's even more interesting is what happens to a child should the development of any of those stages be tampered with.
  • by Blixinator (1585261) on Friday June 26, @09:37AM (#28482277)
    GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) According to the Surgeon general, women should not drink from the fountain of youth during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects.
  • Wow...great stuff (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scuba_steve_1 (849912) on Friday June 26, @09:40AM (#28482349)
    Wow...that is absolutely amazing...and she is so fortunate to have a family that sees the situation so positively...and who supports related research by the scientific community to see if there is a potential broader benefit here. Frankly, it must be tough for them at times, but I am sure that my wife would *love* it if our little girl never grew up. Thank goodness her sisters are supportive, because they will most likely need to take care of her in the future after her parents advance in age. Great stuff.
  • Reaching adulthood and then preserving the body of a 20-year-old forever is one thing. This is quite something else.

    It is not so much failure to age, as failure to grow/mature. It remains to be seen whether her abnormality will grant longer life span in practice.

  • Similar story (Score:4, Interesting)

    Years ago I read about this girl who was 19 and had never entered puberty (she had developed normally otherwise). Turns out there was a tumor blocking her pituitary gland. I'm sure they've done hundreds of tests so it can't be something like that but I was just reminded of that story.

  • Doctors recommended growth hormone therapy early in Brooke's life, but the treatment produced no results.

    Howard Greenberg recalled the follow-up visit to the endocrinologist. "We took her back in six months, and the doctor looked at us and said, 'Why didn't you give Brooke the growth hormones?' And I said, 'We gave Brooke the growth hormones. We gave her everything you told us to do.' And Brooke didn't put on a pound, an ounce; she didn't grow an inch."

    not that i know a damn thing about endocrinology, but i would speculate that this failed therapy suggest that, as we all have receptors for various hormones, her body has no such receptors for HGH. if someone is born genetically male, but has no male secondary characteristics, then either:
    1. his body produces no testosterone,
    2. his body produces testosterone, but his body doesn't react to it

    i would say that this girl, uh, young woman, has an incredibly rare, unique mutation: insensitivity to human growth hormone. it would explain all of her symptoms

  • Hmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by LizardKing (5245) on Friday June 26, @10:14AM (#28483043) Homepage

    She has pajamas and outfits that are 10 or 12 years old,' he said.

    That's nothing, I work in an office with some programmers who haven't changed their outfits in over twenty years.

  • HGH Receptors (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SpottedKuh (855161) on Friday June 26, @10:15AM (#28483071)

    Doctors recommended growth hormone therapy early in Brooke's life, but the treatment produced no results. Howard Greenberg recalled the follow-up visit to the endocrinologist. "We took her back in six months, and the doctor looked at us and said, 'Why didn't you give Brooke the growth hormones?' And I said, 'We gave Brooke the growth hormones. We gave her everything you told us to do.' And Brooke didn't put on a pound, an ounce; she didn't grow an inch."

    So clearly an HGH deficiency isn't the (only) issue, it's that her HGH receptors don't respond to the hormone. But, to the best of my knowledge, that wouldn't account for a lack of mental development. This sounds like a combination of many factors coming together.

    I'll have to take a look to see if there's anything written from a medical perspective (e.g., a journal paper) on this case. It could be interesting to hear what the doctors have to say, as opposed to what ABC News reports the poor mother has to say (projecting her wishes onto her daughter: thinking she's a rebellious teenager when really she's just an infant).

  • Another case (Score:5, Interesting)

    by polymeris (902231) on Friday June 26, @10:28AM (#28483343)
    There is this girl/woman in Brazil, Maria Aldenete, who has similar syntoms. I couldn't find any info in English on her... She's 30 years old or so.
  • Relativity (Score:5, Funny)

    by trevdak (797540) on Friday June 26, @10:29AM (#28483375) Homepage
    Has anyone considered that she might just be moving very close to the speed of light?
  • I have an aunt who was in her third trimester when she was in a car accident, and Dolly was born soon after with no apparent damage... except she never grew up. Dolly passed away a few years ago, at the age of 33, and weighed about 80 pounds - she did grow "up", but much slower than normal - she was 20 before she weighed 40 pounds, and never spoke a single intelligible word. She never matured mentally beyond around 6 months, and was always in a crib at all the family gatherings. Thankfully, I never had to change her diaper.

    There are some differences, as Dolly did seem to physically mature, just very slowly - but the doctors didn't seem to think it was that phenomenal, just brain damage from the accident. She did have the same odd development that Megan's eyes have - the wandering eye, so to speak. (As opposed to my wandering eye, which is entirely a different sort of affliction.) :)

  • perhaps a large conglomerate could claim intellectual property on this mutation, and mass produce cute little baby pets that never grow up and become surly teenagers. perhaps you could even clone yourself, and have a little pet baby you to waddle around in diapers and make cute cooing noises. when the novelty wears off and they become a hassle, just leave them by the side of the road, like people always do with golden retriever puppies at the end of the summer and such*

    *this post brought to you in an attempt to offend every shred of ethics you have

  • In a couple of years, when she turns 18, would nudes of her be child porn? Eh?

    (listens for the sounds of heads exploding)

    • The article says that her brain has hardly changed at all - it's still an infant's brain. If you read the article, you'll see that the parents and those around her who claim to see changes or improvements in her ability to communicate are projecting their wishes, same as people do with their pets - except that pets CAN grow and learn. Brooke can't.

      Imagine if your brain suddenly never changes. You can never learn a new thing, remember anything from even 5 minutes ago, etc. Before the movie "50 First Dates", there was a sci-fi short story that posited this, with horrifying consequences. It would be the worse than having Alzheimers.

      • by GauteL (29207) on Friday June 26, @10:30AM (#28483389) Homepage

        "Before the movie "50 First Dates", there was a sci-fi short story that posited this, with horrifying consequences"

        It must suck that your example of this is a crappy rom-com with Adam Sandler rather than a brilliant film like Memento [imdb.com].

    • by aepervius (535155) on Friday June 26, @10:08AM (#28482961)
      Some of her body part , like bone structure, are 10 years old. Thus it sounds doubtful she will reach the multi-centenarian age you cited. They tried to communicate with her , tried to teach her speaking but it failed. Anyway there is a rearrangement of the pharynx/larynx at the venerable age of 1/2 years old which is needed to be able to physically speak. Without it you can't. Maybe a doctor/biologist can chime in.
        • I got the sense that she's more like the family pet than a toy ... but yes, it's sad.

          And for all those who downmodded this sort of discussion, it shows more concern with form over function, a lack of understanding about what really makes us human. and/or a knee-jerk reaction to anything that doesn't conform to your initial perception of "don't harm the cute baby." It's not a "cute baby" - it's a grotesque parody of a human, with no potential, no real personality (the brain has not changed since infanthood - she can't talk, and reacts the same as an infant to outside stimuli).

          About the only positive thing to say at this point is that baby diapers are cheaper than Depends.

          Her bones are aging at an almost normal rate, so there's no question of her living to be centuries old, and "just developing slower". Maybe they can transplant the genes into "Chicken Little".

    • by Dunbal (464142) on Friday June 26, @09:59AM (#28482773)

      I wonder what the cause of diminished mental capacity might be?

            While I am not aware of the particulars of this case, as a doctor I can state that myelinization of nerve cells inside the brain is what is believed to contribute to increased cognitive ability. Babies are born with roughly the number of neurons (nerve cell) they will have for the rest of their lives, however these neurons are not fully coated in myelin. Myelin increases the efficiency and conductivity of a neuron, and is synthesized by cells surrounding the neuron. However this production takes time - a few years in the case of neurons outside the brain - which explains why babies are also clumsy. Myelinization of the brain itself takes roughly 20 years.

            I suspect that this patient isn't producing myelin, among other things, and therefore will never reach her cognitive potential.

Imagine the pieces as a set of disconnected events