Brooke Greenberg

American Syndrome X patient

Brooke Megan Greenberg (January 8th, 1993 – October 24, 2013)<ref name=spiegel1029 /><ref name=sollev /> was an American who remained physically and cognitively similar to a toddler, despite her increasing age. She was about 30 in (76 cm) tall, weighed about 16 lb (7.3 kg) and had an estimated mental age of nine months to one year. Brooke's doctors termed her condition Syndrome X.

Birth and early life

Brooke was born on January 8th, 1993<ref name=spiegel1029> Bethge, Philip. Brooke the Immortal: An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging(link). Der Spiegel.

2010-10-29.

</ref><ref>

The Curious Case of Brooke Greenberg: 16-Year-Old Has the Body and Mind of a Toddler(link). {{{website}}}. Fox News. 2009-08-07.

</ref> to parents Howard and Melanie Greenberg<ref name=FFvideo></ref> at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. She was delivered by Caesarean section, one month before her due date due to "intermittent growth",<ref name=TLCdoc></ref> weighing just four pounds (1.8 kg). She was born with anterior hip dislocation, a condition that caused her legs to be swiveled upward toward her shoulders; it was corrected surgically. Otherwise, Brooke appeared to be a normal infant.<ref name=frozen> James, Sara,

 A child frozen in time Full text, 
 , 
 NBC News, 
 October 23, 2005,

</ref> She was the third of four girls born to her parents.<ref name=TLCdoc />

In her first six years, she went through a series of unexplained medical emergencies from which she recovered. She had seven perforated stomach ulcers. She also suffered a seizure. This was followed by what was later diagnosed as a stroke; weeks later, no damage was detected. At age five, Brooke had a mass in her brain that caused her to go into a deep sleep (after confirmation that it was not a coma) for 14 days. The doctors diagnosed the mass as a brain tumor. She later awoke, and physicians found no tumor present. Brooke's pediatrician, Dr. Lawrence Pakula, states that the source of her sudden illness remains a mystery.<ref name="abc1"/>

During an interview on the talk show Katie, her father stated that between the ages of four and five, she stopped growing.<ref> Greenfield, Beth. 'Toddler' is 20 Years Old, and Forever Young, Due to Baffling Medical Condition(link). Yahoo.com.

2013-01-11.

</ref> Child Frozen In Time, a documentary about Brooke,<ref name=TLCdoc /> was first broadcast on TLC on August 9, 2009.<ref>

Brooke Greenberg(link). Mahalo.com.

</ref>

Unexplained condition

Over several years, the Greenbergs visited many specialists, looking for an explanation for their daughter's strange condition, yet there was no diagnosis of any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality.<ref name=walker>,

 A case study of "disorganized development" and its possible relevance to genetic determinants of aging, 
 Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, 
 2009,
 Vol. 130(Issue: 5),
 pp. 350–356,
 DOI: 10.1016/j.mad.2009.02.003,
 PMID: 19428454,</ref>  In 2001, when Dateline documented Brooke at eight years of age, she was still the size of a six-month-old infant, weighing just 13 lb (5.9 kg) at 30 inches (76 cm) tall. The family still had no explanation. Brooke's mother Melanie said, "They [the specialists] just said she’ll catch up. Then we went to the nutritionist, the endocrinologist. We tried the growth hormone…".  The growth hormone treatment had no effect. Howard, Brooke's father, said, "I mean, she did not put on an ounce, or she did not grow an inch... That’s when I knew there was a problem." After the growth hormone administration failed, the doctors, unable to diagnose a known condition, named her condition Syndrome X.

The Greenbergs made many visits to nearby Johns Hopkins Children's Center and even took Brooke to New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, searching for information about their daughter’s condition.<ref name=frozen /> When geneticists sequenced Greenberg's DNA, they found that the genes associated with the premature aging diseases were normal, unlike the mutated versions in patients with Werner syndrome and progeria.<ref name="newscientist"> Coghlan, Andy,

 Teenage 'baby' may lack master ageing gene Full text, 
 New Scientist, 
  
 June 25, 2009,

</ref>

Medical studies

In 2006, Richard Walker, an endocrine physiologist at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, said that Brooke's body was not developing as a coordinated unit but as independent parts that were out of synchronization.<ref>

Clinical Interventions in Aging(link). {{{website}}}. Dove Medical Press Ltd..

</ref> <ref> News, A. B. C.. 20-Year-Old Dies Never Having Aged(link). ABC News.

2013-10-29.

Accessed 2018-04-10.

</ref><ref> News, A. B. C.. Forever Young: Benjamin Button Children Never Grow or Age(link). ABC News.

2011-01-21.

Accessed 2018-04-10.

</ref> She was never diagnosed with any known genetic disorder or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why.<ref name="abc1"> Brown, Bob,

 Doctors Baffled, Intrigued by Girl Who Doesn't Age Full text, 
 Health, 
 ABC News, 
 2006-06-23,

</ref> Her telomeres seemed to be shortening at the normal rate.<ref name=walker/>

In 2009, Walker said, "There've been very minimal changes in Brooke's brain … Various parts of her body, rather than all being at the same stage, seem to be disconnected."<ref name="abc1"/> Walker noted that Brooke's brain, for example, was not much more mature than that of a newborn infant. He estimated her mental age at around nine months to a year old. Brooke could make gestures and recognize sounds but could not speak. Her bones were like those of a ten-year-old, and she still had her baby teeth, which had an estimated developmental age of about eight years. Said Walker, "We think that Brooke's condition presents us with a unique opportunity to understand the process of aging."<ref> Hall, Christi. Brooke Greenberg Frozen in Time - 17-Year Old 'Toddler'(link). {{{website}}}.

May 10, 2010.

</ref> "Different parts of her body are developing at different rates, as if they were not a unit but parts of separate organisms," Walker explained.<ref name=spiegel1029 /> Dr. Walker did not say whether the genes responsible for development are the same ones responsible for aging.

Death

Brooke Greenberg died on October 24, 2013, at the Herman and Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai Medical Center in Baltimore, the same hospital where she was born. Her funeral service took place on October 27, 2013, and that same morning, she was buried at Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery - Berrymans Lane, in Reisterstown, Maryland.<ref name=sollev>Brooke Megan Greenberg, obituary and condolences at the Sol Levinson & Bros., Inc. site, stored at the Wayback Machine</ref> The cause of her death was bronchomalacia, a medical condition usually occurring in children, which results in difficulty breathing due to weak cartilage in the walls of the bronchial tubes.<ref> Davis, Nayana. Brooke Greenberg, 20, who suffered from rare genetic condition, dies(link). {{{website}}}.

October 30, 2013.

</ref>

Comparable cases

Dr. Walker believed that Brooke Greenberg's condition had resulted from a failure of central control genes. He identified two more people with similar developmental issues: Gabrielle Williams<ref> Healy, Donna,

 Medical Mystery: Tiny Billings girl thrives on her family's love Full text, 
 , 
  
 May 22, 2011,

</ref> of Montana (born in 2004) and Nicky Freeman<ref> Calautti, Lisa,

 Forty-year-old trapped in child's body Full text, 
 , 
  
 February 27, 2010,

</ref> of Australia (born in December 28, 1969), a middle aged man who looks like a preteen boy.

Gabrielle Williams's condition has since been determined to have been the result of a genetic mutation. Nicky Freeman has been diagnosed with deformity of the pituitary gland.

María Audenete do Nascimento, a Brazilian woman who lives in the town of Caucaia near Fortaleza in the state of Ceará, Brazil, was once thought to have also been suffering from a condition similar to Greenberg's. She was reportedly born in May 1981 but stopped growing after nine months.<ref>

Presa no Corpo de Uma Criança(link). {{{website}}}. Discovery Brasil's YouTube channel.

</ref> She has been diagnosed with severe hypothyroidism.

In May 2015, it was reported that Layla Qualls of Oklahoma looks like she is 9 or 10 months old, but is 3 years old. She is among seven children worldwide with Syndrome X that are being studied by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles. In their ongoing research they found that the blood of Syndrome X children appears to age normally.<ref>

Oklahoma girl's rare syndrome prevents her from aging(link). {{{website}}}. Fox News. 2015-05-08.

</ref> Layla has also been featured in a TLC documentary titled "The Girls Who Don't Age". This documentary aired July 18, 2016 on TLC.<ref name=TLCdocumentary></ref>

In July 2016, it was reported that Alyssa Pennington of New Mexico looks like she is five years old, but is 12 years old.<ref name="TLCdocumentary"/> She is another Syndrome X case.<ref>

New Mexico girl one of six with rare genetic disorder(link). {{{website}}}. KRQE News 13. 2016-07-19.

</ref>

Another case that has been reported in July 2016 is Jenifer Sandoval of Colorado. Although she looks like she is four years old, she is 22 years old.<ref name="TLCdocumentary"/><ref>

The Real Peter Pans: The Girls Who Don't Age(link). {{{website}}}. Barcroft Media Ltd. 2016-07-16.

</ref>

In April 2017, NTD Television reported about Manpreet Singh from a village in the northern Mansa, India. At 22 years old, he is only 23 inches tall and was born after ten months. He did not show any signs of growth and development such as speaking after six months. Doctors said his condition could be caused by his late birth and a deficiency of growth hormones.<ref>

Mysterious illness leaves Indian man trapped in toddler's body(link). {{{website}}}. NTD Television. 14 April 2017.

</ref>

Another reported case in 2017 is Angus Palmes from Macclesfield, UK. At the age of 13 he weighs 2.14 stone (30.0 lb) and has a height of 3 feet 1 inch tall. He is believed to have a chromosomal translocation of 15/20 and a partial trisomy of 22q12.3.<ref> Adams, Chris. Meet Angus - the brave 13-year-old boy with a rare condition that means he's the size of a toddler(link). men.

2017-08-15.

Accessed 2019-02-02.

</ref>

Blood tissue from five other female Syndrome X cases (whose average age was 6.3 years) turned out to be age appropriate<ref name= walkerEpigenetics>,

 Epigenetic age analysis of children who seem to evade aging, 
 Aging, 
 2015,
 Vol. 7(Issue: 5),
 pp. 334–9,
 DOI: 10.18632/aging.100744,
 PMID: 25991677,
 PMC: 4468314,</ref> according to a biomarker of aging known as epigenetic clock. The mean epigenetic age of the five pure Syndrome X subjects was 6.7 years (standard error=1.0) which is not significantly different from the mean chronological age of 6.3 years (standard error=1.8). Notably, the oldest pure Syndrome X case had an epigenetic age of 14.5 years which was 3.2 years older than her true chronological age. It is not yet known whether the epigenetic age of other tissues is also age appropriate in these cases.

Neotenic Complex Syndrome

Main article: Neotenic complex syndrome

Blood samples from each of the "Syndrome X" girls were sent to Dr Radoje Drmanac in San Francisco, who did a full genomic sequencing and found the common link shared by the girls, leading the syndrome to be renamed "neotenic complex syndrome".<ref>

The real Peter Pans: The Girls Who Don't Age(link). Barcroft TV.

</ref><ref>,

 Clinical and genetic analysis of a rare syndrome associated with neoteny, 
 Genetics in Medicine, 
 2018,
 Vol. 19(Issue: 9),
 pp. 495–502,
 DOI: 10.1038/gim.2017.140,
 PMID: 29758565,
 
 
 Full text,</ref>

External links

• Girl Frozen In Time (TV Movie) (TLC Documentary) at YouTube
• The Amazing Girl Who Doesn't Age! on ABC's Good Morning America in August 2009

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