American Lizzie Velazquez is 21 years old, she weighs 25 kg, does not suffer from anorexia and eats every 15 minutes. The student suffers from a rare disease that prevents her from gaining weight, although she eats up to 60 meals a day, which contain five to eight thousand calories, according to the British newspaper The Sun
“I weigh myself regularly and if I gain at least one pound, I am very happy. However, I eat every 15 to 20 minutes to maintain my strength,”says Lizzie. Most of all she loves chips, sweets, chocolate, pizza, chicken, and does not deny herself donuts, ice cream and pasta.
At the same time, Velazquez gets very upset when others suspect that she has anorexia: “When I meet new people, I have to say: 'Hi, I'm Lizzie, and I suffer from a rare syndrome, I'm not anorexic.'
Lizzie was born four weeks ahead of schedule. “The doctors said they didn't understand how she could have survived,” recalls Rita, Lizzie’s 45-year-old mother. “We had to buy clothes for dolls from a toy store because the children's clothes were too big.”
The doctors told the parents that the girl would never be able to walk, talk and lead a normal life. Fortunately, the gloomy predictions of doctors did not come true. Despite her metabolic problems, she is generally quite healthy. “I'm normal, only very, very small,” says Lizzie.
Doctors from Austin, Texas, conducted many genetic tests on the girl's body, but still have not been able to find out the cause of her illness. They believe Lizzie may be suffering from accelerated aging and tissue degeneration. So far, the Aesculapians do not undertake to predict what awaits the girl in the future, however, they hope that new research will help to make the correct diagnosis.
Lizzie herself, meanwhile, is not discouraged. She intends to continue her college studies and has recently written a book about her mysterious illness.
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