In medical practice, there are cases when the course of biological time at the end of a person's life path suddenly changes to the opposite. For example, dentists are familiar with a similar phenomenon, claiming that some of their patients - very old people, suddenly, like babies, start cutting … teeth!
The secret of her youth
Thus, 98-year-old Chinese Wu Dechen from Hengyang City has been bedridden for several years. However, it was recently discovered that he had two new teeth growing and his gray hair darkened again.
The expression "toothless old age" now does not fit the 90-year-old resident of Shanghai Tan Jizhen, who in a short time grew 25 new teeth, which together with the surviving ones made up a complete set.
Demonstrating her "renewal" in a smile, the old woman told reporters that her teeth began to fall out several decades ago. But one day, Grandma Tan felt itching and soreness in her gums, like babies have when their teeth are teething. When a few days later she looked in the mirror, she almost fell: both jaws shone with a young pearl sheen!
Dentists claim that information about such facts comes to them quite often, however, in practice, "new" teeth usually turn out to be well preserved old or represent bone growths. But in the cases described above, the doctors could only shrug their hands.
It does not fit into any medical framework and what for some time began to happen to a resident of the Japanese city of Fukuoka Sei Senagon.
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At the age of 75, Sei felt unexplained changes in her body. First, her gray hair disappeared, and her hair regained its former shine and black color. Then her gums began to bleed, so she could not wear a denture.
Say thought that these were the consequences of radiation and even wanted to write a will, but, just in case, she decided to consult with the doctors and made the first visit to the dentist. But he, having examined the gums of the old woman, said that the radiation was radiation, but apparently she would not die soon, since it was not known why her teeth suddenly began to cut!
And then fantastic events followed. Sei's skin on her body and face began to smooth out, her muscles regained their former elasticity, attacks of osteochondrosis and other senile sores disappeared into oblivion, and after a couple of years, Sei stopped recognizing her friends on the street, since she was twenty years younger.
Some time later, her menstrual cycle resumed, she separated from her husband and married a 40-year-old bank clerk who claims that Say looks no older than thirty.
Sei Senagon for some time became the most famous and recognizable woman in Japan. She was endlessly interviewed, invited to various talk shows and endlessly annoyed with requests to sell the secret of her youth for any money.
Today, a woman is seriously afraid that if the process of her rejuvenation keeps the current pace, then in 15 years she will turn into a 10-12-year-old girl!
Trapped in Time
Not so long ago, gerontologists discovered a gene that promotes the formation of cells that can destroy the aging and the dead. They had a hunch that the oncogene, which under certain circumstances causes rapid and uncontrollable cell division and leads to tumor diseases, is nothing more than a gene of "youth", only "gone crazy" and destroying not diseased cells, but healthy ones.
Therefore, aging is completely unnatural for the human body, within which a whole system and program of protection against impending death is initially laid. Researchers today set the task of removing the "dormant" reserves from a state of rest and making them actively function.
They still do not fully understand the reason for the sudden "awakening" of the genes of "youth". It also remains to be seen why vital genes usually “sleep”.
The consequences of the “mad” “youth gene” can be varied. Japanese Sei Senagon over time can really turn into a little girl, and American Brooke Greenberg, on the contrary, become an adult woman only in five hundred years!
Today Brooke babbles, blows bubbles and plays with dolls like a normal baby. Meanwhile, she was born in 1993 and she is already 19 years old!
Brooke Greenberg, who physically and mentally remains at the level of a one-year-old, weighs 16 pounds (just over 7 kg) and is only 30 inches (75 cm) tall. Until recently, the case with her was considered by medical luminaries as a kind of anomaly, but the study of her DNA showed that the secret of her stopping in time is associated with damage to genes responsible for aging in normal people.
Professor Richard Walker, who leads these studies, argues that DNA analysis by Brooke Greenberg can help not only understand the nature of old age, but also master the mechanisms that govern this process.
Living with her parents and sisters in Reisterstown, Maryland, Brook is virtually "stuck in time," according to The Sunday Times. Some development is noticeable in her: she learned to crawl quickly, smile and laugh. But at the same time she does not grow, she does not know how to eat, speak, her milk teeth have not changed.
The Greenberg family has four daughters, but only one of them is the long-awaited third baby - an eternal baby. Brook's bone tissue corresponds to 10 years of age (analysis of bone density and cartilage ossification allows determining the age of even long-dead people), and the brain has undergone only minor changes since early childhood.
The girl's mother Melanie, when asked about the age of the child, gives years to months, currently calling her 19 months.
The only family member younger than Brooke is her sister Curly. The difference between them is at the age of three years, but Curly has long been accustomed to carrying her older sister in her arms, taking care of her on a par with her parents and relatives.
She stopped growing and developing at the age of 8-10 months, and since then, Brooke has only normal hair and nails. They tried to give the girl growth hormone, but her body does not react to it.
In the first six years of her life, the girl suffered a number of severe and, in fact, fatal diseases. However, all these diseases, the cause of which also remained a complete mystery to doctors, Brooke's body was able to overcome.
In particular, the malignant tumor resolved by itself, and the stroke did not leave any traces behind. Once the girl fell into a lethargic sleep, but then she woke up herself. And for the past eleven years, Brooke has been practically healthy, apart from the stalled development. Not a man, but a solid riddle!
Professor Richard Walker believes that the body of the fantastic Brooke develops not as a single whole, but as a set of independent parts. Parts of the girl's body - arms, legs, internal organs - grow by themselves, each in its own way, and for all 19 years they have not synchronized with each other in any way …
God's gift
According to experts, Brooke Greenberg will celebrate her "coming of age" at the current pace of development somewhere closer to the beginning of the XXIV century. In other words, we will certainly not live up to this date, if scientists in the coming years do not awaken the "sleeping gene of youth."
By the way, they argue that our genetic inheritance trumps all other factors in determining how long we live and how good we look.
From which it follows that, having identified the genetic factors of longevity, scientists hope to learn how to manage them, not only adding years to life, but also breathing life into old years. The elixir of youth remains an elusive dream, but the emergence of medicines to help us live longer is not far off.
The latest discoveries in genetics herald the beginning of a new era in longevity research, and drugs created on this basis may be available for testing in the very near future.
“I see 100-year-old people who also keep in good shape. They drive, paint, and they say life is beautiful,”says Professor Nir Barzilai. "This trend makes me believe that we, as a species, have the ability to live to 100 years if we prevent some of the age-related diseases."
In the future, Barzilai sees the creation of a pill that would prevent the signs of aging and would be taken once a day when a person reaches 40 or 50 years old.
Perhaps, further study of the phenomenon not only of Brooke Greenberg, but also of other unique ones who are also "stuck in childhood" will help in creating such a pill.
Yes, Brooke is not alone, she has "girlfriends" in the same America and Brazil. For example, Gabby Williams from Florida recently went 7 years old, but she still looks like a newborn baby: she weighs only 4 and a half kilograms, wears diapers and drinks from a bottle of infant formula every three hours.
The parents of a toddler whose only hair and teeth have grown over the past six years since birth think that other fathers and mothers might be sad that their child will never grow.
But Mary and John take everything as it is and even feel that Gabby is their blessing, they say that they enjoy being like young parents all the time.
Parents have the same feelings for Maria Audete do Nasquiente, who was born in Brazil in 1981. Despite her "mature" age, she looks for a maximum of a year and still does not know how to speak, dress and independently satisfy her needs.
Maria's mother died 13 years ago, after a while her father married another woman, Dora. The stepmother began to take care of Mary from the first day of marriage. She surrounded her with love and care, believing that an unusual child was sent to her as a gift from God.
Specialists from the Medical Faculty of the University of Ceará constantly monitor Maria and, due to their capabilities and, most importantly, knowledge, try to "treat" her, but so far they have failed …
Gennady FEDOTOV