An 8-year old in Bilings, Montana never ages as she still looks like an infant and her needs haven't quite changed over the last years.
Gabby Williams is already 8 years old but only weighs 11 pounds and her mother, Margret Williams still needs to bathe her, change her diapers, cradle her and feed her. The 8-year old never ages, as mother explains just how little her seemingly immortal daughter is considering her age.
"Gabrielle hasn't changed since pretty much forever," Margret shares and continues, "She has gotten a little longer and we have jumped into putting her in size 3-6 month clothes instead of 0-3 months for the footies. Last time we weighed her she was up a pound to 11 pounds and she's gotten a few more haircuts." According to medical researcher Richard Walker, who has been studying Gabby, the child is suffering from a rare genetic condition only a handful of people in the world also have.
"In some people, something happens to them and the development process is retarded. The rate of change in the body slows and is negligible," Richard Walker, who has been on the case for the past two years shares. He also notes Gabby's condition as "biological immortality."She along with two other patients are being studied by Walker and will appear in TLC's 40 Year Old Child: A New Case premiering Monday August 19 10PM Eastern Time.
Apart from this 8-year old who never ages, there's also a 29-year old man trapped in a 10-year old's body in Florida and a 31-year old woman in a 2-year old's body in Brazil. In all three cases, Walker shares that they do not experience "development inertia", which is an impetus to human growith and development.. He has found that one of the genes of Gabby is damaged, one that is responsible for this type of "inertia".
"If we could identify the gene and then at young adulthood we could silence the expression of developmental inertia, find an off-switch, when you do that, there is perfect homeostasis and you are biologically immortal." Walker states.
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