51 replies to this topic

[Esoparagon]

At 16-years-old, Brooke weighs 16 pounds and stands 2 feet, 6 inches tall, MyFOXChicago reported. She can’t speak, but she can express frustration and happiness.


ABC Story
Recent Story at age 16




Sorry if this has been covered before.

Edited by Esoparagon, 25 June 2009 - 05:24 PM.

[edDe]

Does anybody have any more info on this story ?

http://www.foxnews.c...036,00.html?mrp

The TV documentary about this might be interesting :

"Child Frozen in Time" at 10 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 2 on TLC.

EdDe

[Mind]

Teenage 'baby' may lack master ageing gene

Bad wording in the title, IMHO, it should say she lacks master "developmental" gene.

Nor does the analysis support the idea that Brooke is somehow "frozen-in-time", in perpetual infanthood. Instead, Walker and colleagues found that different parts of her body and anatomy are maturing at different rates.

"I think she has differential growth of her body," says Walker. "It's not growing like a unified organism, but in fragmented parts."

Her brain, for example, is scarcely more mature than that of a newborn infant. Although she can recognise her mother and make gestures and noises to articulate her wishes, she can't talk.

Yet her bones – although still abnormally short – are around 10 years old, as determined by the maturity of the cells and structures. And despite being a teenager, she still has her baby teeth, with an estimated developmental age of about eight years.

[John_Ventureville]

Based on what I have read, her bones are those of a ten year-old and just one good look at her face shows she is not a normal looking toddler. Also, her telomeres are supposed to be about half the length of someone her chronological age, which is not a good sign. But I still think she could give anti-aging researchers great insights. Or am I wrong in this assumption?

John Grigg

[niner]

Based on what I have read, her bones are those of a ten year-old and just one good look at her face shows she is not a normal looking toddler. Also, her telomeres are supposed to be about half the length of someone her chronological age, which is not a good sign. But I still think she could give anti-aging researchers great insights. Or am I wrong in this assumption?

Since development and aging are two entirely different things, I'm inclined to say that she will not provide any significant insights to anti-aging researchers. She might provide a huge insight to developmental scientists, though. If anyone is a candidate for one of the new low-cost genome studies, it would seem to be her. It might also be the case that we already have candidate genes in place, and we could just look at her versions of those without doing her entire genome.

[VictorBjoerk]

I don't think Brooke Greenberg is interesting regarding to aging. However she may help others with rare conditions similar to her.

She doesn't look like a normal baby. It is clearly visible that something is really abnormal.

aging and development isn't the same thing. a girl maturating slowly getting her first period at 15 isn't aging any slower than the one who got it very early at let's say 10 years old.

[oasmith03]

When i first started reading this thread, it reminded me of a question that I've thought about before. I understand that there is no specific gene for the aging process in general, but i find it curious that there hasn't been random mutations over the centuries of record keeping of various genes and their interactions that lead to people living abnormally long. After all, there are people with conditions of Progeria, so why not the opposite? I agree that Brook is aging, but not developing, and i do not think she will live to 200 or even 50. I read once of this guy in China, Li Ching-Yuen, who supposedly lived to 256, but I highly doubt it is true. But with the population being so high these days, there are bound to be very rare mutations, or combinations of mutations that increase lifespan. I'm sure this topic has come up before on the site, so if anyone has links, link away.

[niner]

When i first started reading this thread, it reminded me of a question that I've thought about before. I understand that there is no specific gene for the aging process in general, but i find it curious that there hasn't been random mutations over the centuries of record keeping of various genes and their interactions that lead to people living abnormally long. After all, there are people with conditions of Progeria, so why not the opposite? I agree that Brook is aging, but not developing, and i do not think she will live to 200 or even 50. I read once of this guy in China, Li Ching-Yuen, who supposedly lived to 256, but I highly doubt it is true. But with the population being so high these days, there are bound to be very rare mutations, or combinations of mutations that increase lifespan. I'm sure this topic has come up before on the site, so if anyone has links, link away.

This is a very good and thoughtful question! Actually, I think that there are a bunch of people who have had such mutations, like Jean Calment and all the other super-centenarians. And indeed, the Super-Centenarian Project is studying just such people and their genes. Humans are complicated machines so it's really easy to break them, which most mutations do, but not so easy to make them better. It's kind of like a car or a computer; if you made a random change by, say, shooting a 22 caliber bullet into the mother board or dropping a bolt in the oil filler port, neither would be very likely to run better, although maybe there would be a one in ten billion chance that you'd improve things.

It might be the case that there are a number of mutations that each confer slightly improved longevity, but only if you have all of them do you become a super-centenarian. I'll be interested in seeing the results from the Super-Centenarian Project, whenever they appear.

[Esoparagon]

No one finds this interesting? Wow... ok then.

[Ghostrider]

No one finds this interesting? Wow... ok then.

It's technically wrong. She is aging, just at a slower rate and not developing. Probably worth studying.

Edited by Ghostrider, 27 June 2009 - 04:20 PM.

[Esoparagon]

No one finds this interesting? Wow... ok then.

It's technically wrong. She is aging, just at a slower rate and not developing. Probably worth studying.

Should make it 'Doctors baffled by girl who barely ages at all'

[forever freedom]

No one finds this interesting? Wow... ok then.

Of course we do, but there have been other topics on this and there's no sense in saying the same thing in them all. Here is one of the topics about this (there are more but i couldn't find with a quick search), you should do a search in the forums before creating a new one:

http://www.imminst.o...rooke greenberg

[forever freedom]

No one finds this interesting? Wow... ok then.

Of course we do, but there have been other topics on this and there's no sense in saying the same thing in them all. Here is one of the topics about this (there are more but i couldn't find with a quick search), you should do a search in the forums before creating a new one:

http://www.imminst.o...rooke greenberg

Who's been doing all this merging of Greenberg's threads? Esoparagon's thread is in total lack of sync with this one in discussion level. I'd have been better to just delete it than to merge it with this one.

[Esoparagon]

Can't they give her something to kick her body into developing? If it's just hormone deficiencies, I don't see why not. Maybe she'll develop mentally too once her brain has a chance to grow.

[Esoparagon]

No one finds this interesting? Wow... ok then.

Of course we do, but there have been other topics on this and there's no sense in saying the same thing in them all. Here is one of the topics about this (there are more but i couldn't find with a quick search), you should do a search in the forums before creating a new one:

http://www.imminst.o...rooke greenberg

Who's been doing all this merging of Greenberg's threads? Esoparagon's thread is in total lack of sync with this one in discussion level. I'd have been better to just delete it than to merge it with this one.

Yeah, I made a thread about her ages ago and no one bothered to discuss it. I don't know why.

[forever freedom]

Can't they give her something to kick her body into developing? If it's just hormone deficiencies, I don't see why not. Maybe she'll develop mentally too once her brain has a chance to grow.

I've read they already tried hormone therapy without success.

[AgeVivo]

Lol from the piece of news everyone appears to believe that she is in fact not aging. I'd really hope she wasn't.. that would be so cool.

in the video

Brookes's body may not be aging but her health is deteriorating. (...) strokes, tumors, ulcers, and severe respiratory problems. At one point they actually told us she had 48 hours (...) But the 4 times Brooke has been dangerously close to death, she has bounced back, and no one knows why

Perhaps smthg like gene promoters re-inducing normal growth, in case of severe stress? (smthg like no basal telomerase?). I guess they've tried to see what she has based on blood tests and specific tests. It must be a genetic trouble, i wonder whether if a 399$ 23andme test could suggest somthg, or an expensive full genome analysis...

If one would find what is genetically happening one could then study it in mice; it could reveal usefull against aging.
Many "if" but personnally i think it is very interesting!

Edited by AgeVivo, 22 July 2009 - 03:22 PM.

[thestuffjunky]

i just watched what seems to be a new episode of it off of 20/20. no doubt this falls in line with the sun centric solar system, earth isnt flat, electricity amongst other wondrous mysteries. however, the preceding have been proven and took scientists(with a lot of persecution along the way) centuries to figure them out. but with the exponential growth with medicines and technologies and all of AUBREYs out here, its a matter of time. in this field she is the staple, poster child if you will. however, now matter what science may be looking for, in all respects, she is still a sentient being. but, lets all hope that any research done will help fill the mixing bowl of research....

[LDG]

I just found the show you're talking about . . . it's entitled "Child Frozen in Time" and airs on The Learning Channel (TLC).

The show happens to be airing tonight (Sunday, August 9, 2009) on TLC here in Ohio tonight at 9:00 p.m. and then again at midnight.

Hope this helps!

[LDG]

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE INTERESTED . . .

I just found the show you're talking about . . . it's entitled "Child Frozen in Time" and airs on The Learning Channel (TLC).

The show happens to be airing tonight (Sunday, August 9, 2009) on TLC here in Ohio at 9:00 p.m. and then again at midnight.

Hope this helps!

Edited by LDG, 09 August 2009 - 10:23 PM.

[niner]

I just found the show you're talking about . . . it's entitled "Child Frozen in Time" and airs on The Learning Channel (TLC).

I hope that they clear up the misconception that Greenberg is "not aging". She has a developmental disorder, and isn't developing, but she is aging faster than normal if anything. That's not as good of a story, so I don't expect it to be told strongly if at all.

[DJS]

I also hope that the misconception is cleared up (simply, development is not aging). However, even if it's not, anything which places the concept of aging into the mass consciousness is a good thing. I view this tragic story as a net positive.