Brooke Greenberg – Girl that Don’t grow with time

May 11, 2010 No comments

Brooke Greenberg is a girl of 17 years old, whose age is increasing but mentally and physically she is similar to toddler. Her height is approximate 30 inches (76 cm) tall and weigh is about 16 pounds (7.3 kg). Mentally and physically, she is like a baby of 9 months to 1 year. She does not grow due to a mysterious disease. Brooke lives in Maryland, and doctors have termed her condition as Syndrome X.

Photo of Brooke Greenberg at age 16

Brooke Greenberg - Girl that Don't grow with time

In Baltimore, Maryland, on January 8th, 1993, Brooke was born at Sinai Hospital. She was born one month prior to her due date and weigh just four pounds (1.8 kg), with anterior hip dislocation, a condition which caused her legs to be swiveled upwards, awkwardly, toward her shoulders. At that time, with the help of surgery her condition was corrected.

Brooke Greenberg went through a lot of unexplained medical emergencies by which she was recovering in her first six years. She was suffering from a seizure and also perforated stomach ulcers. She had a mass in her brain at the age of five which caused her to sleep for 14 days. The mass was diagnosed by the doctors as a brain tumor. Afterward she awoke, but according to physicians no tumor was present. Brooke’s doctor, Dr. Lawrence Pakula said, “The source of her sudden illness remains a mystery”.

The Greenbergs visited lots of specialists for an interpretation for their daughter’s strange condition, from the last several years. Broke was still the size of a six-month-old infant, her weigh was just 13 lb (5.9 kg) at 27 inches (69 cm) tall when Dateline documented in the year 2001. No explanation was found by the family for their daughter’s strange condition. Melanie (Brooke Greenberg’s mother ) said, “They [the specialists] just said she’ll catch up. Then we went to the nutritionist, the endocrinologist. We tried the growth hormone…” . No effect had been found by the growth hormone treatment. Brooke’s father, Howard 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.” Afterward, that treatment also failed, the doctors were unable to diagnose a known condition but later her condition called as Syndrome X.

Many visits were made by the Greenbergs, close to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. She was also taken to New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, pointed to an explanation for their daughter’s strange condition. It was found by geneticists that the genes associated with the premature aging diseases were normal when they sequenced Greenberg’s DNA.

Doctor of a University of South Florida College Of Medicine, in 2006 Dr. Richard Walker said, “Brooke’s body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic disorder or chromosomal abnormality.”

“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” said Walker in 2009.

This photograph shows the developmental age of Brooke Greenberg.

1 Year Old

3 Years Old