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Doctors Baffled, Intrigued By Girl Who Doesn't Age
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."
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.
Regardless of age, there are laws against sex with people with diminished mental capacity, who cannot give consent.
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.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Wouldn't be so sure of it. From the article:
In her first six years, Brooke went through a series of medical emergencies from which she recovered, often without explanation. She survived surgery for seven perforated stomach ulcers. She suffered a brain seizure followed by what was diagnosed as a stroke that weeks later left no apparent damage.
At 4, she fell into a lethargy that caused her to sleep for 14 days. Then, doctors diagnosed a brain tumor, and the Greenbergs bought a casket for her.
"We were preparing for our child to die," Howard Greenberg said. "We were saying goodbye. And, then, we got a call that there was some change; that Brooke had opened her eyes and she was fine. There was no tumor.
That was in the article I read about her. She has had cancer and other issues that seemingly healed themselves.
citation needed
Sure, I'll bite. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19492313?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
The telomeres are normal, and match up with her actual chronological age.
Cancer is by definition a failure of the body to deal with genetic damage. The reason you're not already dead of cancer is because the body has mechanisms for dealing with such damage (which happens all the time). The reason people die of cancer is because at some point a specific set of genetic damage happens that bypasses those safety mechanisms. It's a question of when rather than if.
Lou Gehrig and the eponymous legionnaires are the rare exception.
Perhaps you've heard of Alois Alzheimer, Hans Asperger, Thomas Hodgkin, James Parkinson, or Georges Tourette. Then again, probably not. But you've most likely heard of Alzheimer's Disease, Asperger Syndrome, Hodgkin Disease (or at least non-Hodgkin Lymphoma), Parkinson's Disease, and Tourette Syndrome.