On October 24, 2013, Brooke Megan Greenberg; beloved daughter of Howard and Melanie (nee Rottenberg) Greenberg; cherished sister of Emily, Caitlin, and Carly Greenberg; adored granddaughter of Jeanne Rottenberg (nee Burkom), Mark Rottenberg, Trudy Greenberg (nee Behrend) and the late Paul Greenberg; dear niece of Esther (late Allan) Greenberg, Michael Rottenberg, and the late Susan Greenberg.
Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS., INC., 8900 Reisterstown Road, at Mount Wilson Lane on Sunday, October 27, at 10 am. Interment Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery - Berrymans Lane.
Please omit flowers. Contributions in her memory may be sent to Sinai Hospital, c/o LifeBridge Health, Department of Development, 2401 W. Belvedere Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215 (please designate: The Herman & Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital) or Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, 7401 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21208.
In mourning at 16 Deer Creek Ct, Reisterstown, MD 21136, through Tuesday.
---------------------------
Brooke Greenberg (January 8, 1993 – October 24, 2013) was an American from Reisterstown, Maryland, who remained physically and cognitively similar to a toddler, despite her increasing age. She was about 30 inches (76 cm) tall, weighed about 16 pounds (7.3 kg), and had an estimated mental age of nine months to one year. Brooke's doctors termed her condition "Syndrome X".
Brooke was born on January 8, 1993, to Jewish parents Howard and Melanie Greenberg at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, one month before her due date, weighing just four pounds (1.8 kg). She was born with anterior hip dislocation, a condition that caused her legs to be swiveled upwards toward her shoulders; it was corrected surgically. Otherwise, Brooke appeared to be a normal infant.
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 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.
During an interview on the talk show Katie, her father stated that between the ages of four and five, she stopped growing.
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. In 2001, when Dateline documented Brooke, 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. 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.
In 2006, Richard Walker, PhD in endocrine physiology of 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. She was never diagnosed with any known genetic disorder or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why. Her telomeres seemed to be shortening at the normal rate.
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." Walker noted that Greenberg'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." "Different parts of her body are developing at different rates, as if they were not a unit but parts of separate organisms," Walker explained. Dr. Walker did not say whether the genes responsible for development are the same ones responsible for aging.
Brooke Greenberg died suddenly on October 24, 2013, at the Herman and Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai Medical Center in Baltimore (the same hospital where she had been born in 1993). 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.[12] The cause of her death was Bronchomalacia, a medical condition usually occurring in children, which results in difficult breathing due to weak cartilage in the walls of the bronchial tubes.
More information can be found if she is Googled.
∼"She was a little bit of heaven. Thanks Brooke."
RIP Brooke Greenberg (1993- 2013)
Brooke Greenberg, who has died aged 20, was the nearest thing in science to a real-life Peter Pan; she stopped growing while still a baby and remained, in both physical and mental terms, at the level of a toddler.
Her condition, named Syndrome X because doctors simply did not understand it, is thought to be unique and raised hopes that, by studying her DNA, scientists would gain new insights into the mysteries of ageing and even develop new therapies for diseases associated with the elderly, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Yet although some speculated that a genetic mutation must have switched off her ability to mature, a leading genetics expert found that there were “no apparent abnormalities in her endocrine system, no gross chromosomal abnormalities, or any of the other disruptions known to occur in humans that can cause developmental issues”. As a result she was never diagnosed with any known disorder that would help to explain her condition.
The third of four daughters, Brooke Greenberg was born prematurely on January 8 1993 in Baltimore, Maryland, weighing about four pounds. Doctors had already become concerned by her spasmodic development in the womb, and it soon became clear that she was far from normal. Born with a rare condition called anterior hip dislocation, soon after birth she had to have a major operation and be placed in a cast.
Brooke’s early life was marked by a series of medical emergencies. On one occasion seven holes in her abdominal wall had to be repaired; on another, because food kept entering her windpipe, she had to be fitted with a gastric feeding tube; she also suffered strokes, seizures, ulcers and breathing difficulties.
Aged four she fell into a 14-day coma and doctors diagnosed a brain tumor the size of a lemon. The diagnosis turned out to be wrong and Brooke woke up — but not before her traumatized parents had already made preparations for her funeral, buying a coffin and consulting the rabbi.
By this time Brooke Greenberg had stopped growing in the conventional sense, never gaining a centimeter or putting on a pound, despite early attempts to boost her development with growth hormone. Yet parts of her anatomy continued to mature. While her facial features remained unchanged, and she kept her baby teeth and remained the size of a one year-old, in biological terms her bones matured to those of a 10-year-old child and her hair and finger nails grew normally.
Richard Walker, a professor at the University of South Florida School of Medicine, who led a research team looking into her case, found that the development of her various organ systems, like the digestive tract, was “disassociated”, with different parts developing at different rates, as if they were not a unit but parts of separate organisms.
For 20 years the family, eventually including her younger sister, changed Brooke’s nappies, fed her, rocked her to sleep and took turns to look after her. She learned to pull herself up in her cot, crawl across the floor and whizz along in a specially adapted baby-walker. Though never able to speak, she would smile at people she recognised, giggle when tickled, do finger paintings when presented with paper and paint pot, and experience ordinary human emotions.
Her parents recalled that when her younger sister was born she would cry with jealousy until she too was picked up along with the new baby. As a teenager, they claimed, she began to show a rebellious streak. But that was as far as it went.
The Greenbergs went to specialist after specialist in search of answers which never came, though in recent years it appeared that her health might have stabilized.
The cause of her death has not been disclosed.
Brooke Greenberg, born January 8 1993, died October 24 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10428714/Brooke-Greenberg-obituary.html
Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS., INC., 8900 Reisterstown Road, at Mount Wilson Lane on Sunday, October 27, at 10 am. Interment Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery - Berrymans Lane.
Please omit flowers. Contributions in her memory may be sent to Sinai Hospital, c/o LifeBridge Health, Department of Development, 2401 W. Belvedere Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215 (please designate: The Herman & Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital) or Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, 7401 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21208.
In mourning at 16 Deer Creek Ct, Reisterstown, MD 21136, through Tuesday.
---------------------------
Brooke Greenberg (January 8, 1993 – October 24, 2013) was an American from Reisterstown, Maryland, who remained physically and cognitively similar to a toddler, despite her increasing age. She was about 30 inches (76 cm) tall, weighed about 16 pounds (7.3 kg), and had an estimated mental age of nine months to one year. Brooke's doctors termed her condition "Syndrome X".
Brooke was born on January 8, 1993, to Jewish parents Howard and Melanie Greenberg at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, one month before her due date, weighing just four pounds (1.8 kg). She was born with anterior hip dislocation, a condition that caused her legs to be swiveled upwards toward her shoulders; it was corrected surgically. Otherwise, Brooke appeared to be a normal infant.
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 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.
During an interview on the talk show Katie, her father stated that between the ages of four and five, she stopped growing.
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. In 2001, when Dateline documented Brooke, 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. 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.
In 2006, Richard Walker, PhD in endocrine physiology of 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. She was never diagnosed with any known genetic disorder or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why. Her telomeres seemed to be shortening at the normal rate.
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." Walker noted that Greenberg'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." "Different parts of her body are developing at different rates, as if they were not a unit but parts of separate organisms," Walker explained. Dr. Walker did not say whether the genes responsible for development are the same ones responsible for aging.
Brooke Greenberg died suddenly on October 24, 2013, at the Herman and Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai Medical Center in Baltimore (the same hospital where she had been born in 1993). 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.[12] The cause of her death was Bronchomalacia, a medical condition usually occurring in children, which results in difficult breathing due to weak cartilage in the walls of the bronchial tubes.
More information can be found if she is Googled.
∼"She was a little bit of heaven. Thanks Brooke."
RIP Brooke Greenberg (1993- 2013)
Brooke Greenberg, who has died aged 20, was the nearest thing in science to a real-life Peter Pan; she stopped growing while still a baby and remained, in both physical and mental terms, at the level of a toddler.
Her condition, named Syndrome X because doctors simply did not understand it, is thought to be unique and raised hopes that, by studying her DNA, scientists would gain new insights into the mysteries of ageing and even develop new therapies for diseases associated with the elderly, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Yet although some speculated that a genetic mutation must have switched off her ability to mature, a leading genetics expert found that there were “no apparent abnormalities in her endocrine system, no gross chromosomal abnormalities, or any of the other disruptions known to occur in humans that can cause developmental issues”. As a result she was never diagnosed with any known disorder that would help to explain her condition.
The third of four daughters, Brooke Greenberg was born prematurely on January 8 1993 in Baltimore, Maryland, weighing about four pounds. Doctors had already become concerned by her spasmodic development in the womb, and it soon became clear that she was far from normal. Born with a rare condition called anterior hip dislocation, soon after birth she had to have a major operation and be placed in a cast.
Brooke’s early life was marked by a series of medical emergencies. On one occasion seven holes in her abdominal wall had to be repaired; on another, because food kept entering her windpipe, she had to be fitted with a gastric feeding tube; she also suffered strokes, seizures, ulcers and breathing difficulties.
Aged four she fell into a 14-day coma and doctors diagnosed a brain tumor the size of a lemon. The diagnosis turned out to be wrong and Brooke woke up — but not before her traumatized parents had already made preparations for her funeral, buying a coffin and consulting the rabbi.
By this time Brooke Greenberg had stopped growing in the conventional sense, never gaining a centimeter or putting on a pound, despite early attempts to boost her development with growth hormone. Yet parts of her anatomy continued to mature. While her facial features remained unchanged, and she kept her baby teeth and remained the size of a one year-old, in biological terms her bones matured to those of a 10-year-old child and her hair and finger nails grew normally.
Richard Walker, a professor at the University of South Florida School of Medicine, who led a research team looking into her case, found that the development of her various organ systems, like the digestive tract, was “disassociated”, with different parts developing at different rates, as if they were not a unit but parts of separate organisms.
For 20 years the family, eventually including her younger sister, changed Brooke’s nappies, fed her, rocked her to sleep and took turns to look after her. She learned to pull herself up in her cot, crawl across the floor and whizz along in a specially adapted baby-walker. Though never able to speak, she would smile at people she recognised, giggle when tickled, do finger paintings when presented with paper and paint pot, and experience ordinary human emotions.
Her parents recalled that when her younger sister was born she would cry with jealousy until she too was picked up along with the new baby. As a teenager, they claimed, she began to show a rebellious streak. But that was as far as it went.
The Greenbergs went to specialist after specialist in search of answers which never came, though in recent years it appeared that her health might have stabilized.
The cause of her death has not been disclosed.
Brooke Greenberg, born January 8 1993, died October 24 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10428714/Brooke-Greenberg-obituary.html
On October 24, 2013, Brooke Megan Greenberg; beloved daughter of Howard and Melanie (nee Rottenberg) Greenberg; cherished sister of Emily, Caitlin, and Carly Greenberg; adored granddaughter of Jeanne Rottenberg (nee Burkom), Mark Rottenberg, Trudy Greenberg (nee Behrend) and the late Paul Greenberg; dear niece of Esther (late Allan) Greenberg, Michael Rottenberg, and the late Susan Greenberg.
Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS., INC., 8900 Reisterstown Road, at Mount Wilson Lane on Sunday, October 27, at 10 am. Interment Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery - Berrymans Lane.
Please omit flowers. Contributions in her memory may be sent to Sinai Hospital, c/o LifeBridge Health, Department of Development, 2401 W. Belvedere Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215 (please designate: The Herman & Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital) or Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, 7401 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21208.
In mourning at 16 Deer Creek Ct, Reisterstown, MD 21136, through Tuesday.
---------------------------
Brooke Greenberg (January 8, 1993 – October 24, 2013) was an American from Reisterstown, Maryland, who remained physically and cognitively similar to a toddler, despite her increasing age. She was about 30 inches (76 cm) tall, weighed about 16 pounds (7.3 kg), and had an estimated mental age of nine months to one year. Brooke's doctors termed her condition "Syndrome X".
Brooke was born on January 8, 1993, to Jewish parents Howard and Melanie Greenberg at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, one month before her due date, weighing just four pounds (1.8 kg). She was born with anterior hip dislocation, a condition that caused her legs to be swiveled upwards toward her shoulders; it was corrected surgically. Otherwise, Brooke appeared to be a normal infant.
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 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.
During an interview on the talk show Katie, her father stated that between the ages of four and five, she stopped growing.
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. In 2001, when Dateline documented Brooke, 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. 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.
In 2006, Richard Walker, PhD in endocrine physiology of 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. She was never diagnosed with any known genetic disorder or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why. Her telomeres seemed to be shortening at the normal rate.
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." Walker noted that Greenberg'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." "Different parts of her body are developing at different rates, as if they were not a unit but parts of separate organisms," Walker explained. Dr. Walker did not say whether the genes responsible for development are the same ones responsible for aging.
Brooke Greenberg died suddenly on October 24, 2013, at the Herman and Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai Medical Center in Baltimore (the same hospital where she had been born in 1993). 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.[12] The cause of her death was Bronchomalacia, a medical condition usually occurring in children, which results in difficult breathing due to weak cartilage in the walls of the bronchial tubes.
More information can be found if she is Googled.
∼"She was a little bit of heaven. Thanks Brooke."
RIP Brooke Greenberg (1993- 2013)
Brooke Greenberg, who has died aged 20, was the nearest thing in science to a real-life Peter Pan; she stopped growing while still a baby and remained, in both physical and mental terms, at the level of a toddler.
Her condition, named Syndrome X because doctors simply did not understand it, is thought to be unique and raised hopes that, by studying her DNA, scientists would gain new insights into the mysteries of ageing and even develop new therapies for diseases associated with the elderly, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Yet although some speculated that a genetic mutation must have switched off her ability to mature, a leading genetics expert found that there were “no apparent abnormalities in her endocrine system, no gross chromosomal abnormalities, or any of the other disruptions known to occur in humans that can cause developmental issues”. As a result she was never diagnosed with any known disorder that would help to explain her condition.
The third of four daughters, Brooke Greenberg was born prematurely on January 8 1993 in Baltimore, Maryland, weighing about four pounds. Doctors had already become concerned by her spasmodic development in the womb, and it soon became clear that she was far from normal. Born with a rare condition called anterior hip dislocation, soon after birth she had to have a major operation and be placed in a cast.
Brooke’s early life was marked by a series of medical emergencies. On one occasion seven holes in her abdominal wall had to be repaired; on another, because food kept entering her windpipe, she had to be fitted with a gastric feeding tube; she also suffered strokes, seizures, ulcers and breathing difficulties.
Aged four she fell into a 14-day coma and doctors diagnosed a brain tumor the size of a lemon. The diagnosis turned out to be wrong and Brooke woke up — but not before her traumatized parents had already made preparations for her funeral, buying a coffin and consulting the rabbi.
By this time Brooke Greenberg had stopped growing in the conventional sense, never gaining a centimeter or putting on a pound, despite early attempts to boost her development with growth hormone. Yet parts of her anatomy continued to mature. While her facial features remained unchanged, and she kept her baby teeth and remained the size of a one year-old, in biological terms her bones matured to those of a 10-year-old child and her hair and finger nails grew normally.
Richard Walker, a professor at the University of South Florida School of Medicine, who led a research team looking into her case, found that the development of her various organ systems, like the digestive tract, was “disassociated”, with different parts developing at different rates, as if they were not a unit but parts of separate organisms.
For 20 years the family, eventually including her younger sister, changed Brooke’s nappies, fed her, rocked her to sleep and took turns to look after her. She learned to pull herself up in her cot, crawl across the floor and whizz along in a specially adapted baby-walker. Though never able to speak, she would smile at people she recognised, giggle when tickled, do finger paintings when presented with paper and paint pot, and experience ordinary human emotions.
Her parents recalled that when her younger sister was born she would cry with jealousy until she too was picked up along with the new baby. As a teenager, they claimed, she began to show a rebellious streak. But that was as far as it went.
The Greenbergs went to specialist after specialist in search of answers which never came, though in recent years it appeared that her health might have stabilized.
The cause of her death has not been disclosed.
Brooke Greenberg, born January 8 1993, died October 24 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10428714/Brooke-Greenberg-obituary.html
Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS., INC., 8900 Reisterstown Road, at Mount Wilson Lane on Sunday, October 27, at 10 am. Interment Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery - Berrymans Lane.
Please omit flowers. Contributions in her memory may be sent to Sinai Hospital, c/o LifeBridge Health, Department of Development, 2401 W. Belvedere Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215 (please designate: The Herman & Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital) or Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, 7401 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21208.
In mourning at 16 Deer Creek Ct, Reisterstown, MD 21136, through Tuesday.
---------------------------
Brooke Greenberg (January 8, 1993 – October 24, 2013) was an American from Reisterstown, Maryland, who remained physically and cognitively similar to a toddler, despite her increasing age. She was about 30 inches (76 cm) tall, weighed about 16 pounds (7.3 kg), and had an estimated mental age of nine months to one year. Brooke's doctors termed her condition "Syndrome X".
Brooke was born on January 8, 1993, to Jewish parents Howard and Melanie Greenberg at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, one month before her due date, weighing just four pounds (1.8 kg). She was born with anterior hip dislocation, a condition that caused her legs to be swiveled upwards toward her shoulders; it was corrected surgically. Otherwise, Brooke appeared to be a normal infant.
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 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.
During an interview on the talk show Katie, her father stated that between the ages of four and five, she stopped growing.
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. In 2001, when Dateline documented Brooke, 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. 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.
In 2006, Richard Walker, PhD in endocrine physiology of 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. She was never diagnosed with any known genetic disorder or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why. Her telomeres seemed to be shortening at the normal rate.
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." Walker noted that Greenberg'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." "Different parts of her body are developing at different rates, as if they were not a unit but parts of separate organisms," Walker explained. Dr. Walker did not say whether the genes responsible for development are the same ones responsible for aging.
Brooke Greenberg died suddenly on October 24, 2013, at the Herman and Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai Medical Center in Baltimore (the same hospital where she had been born in 1993). 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.[12] The cause of her death was Bronchomalacia, a medical condition usually occurring in children, which results in difficult breathing due to weak cartilage in the walls of the bronchial tubes.
More information can be found if she is Googled.
∼"She was a little bit of heaven. Thanks Brooke."
RIP Brooke Greenberg (1993- 2013)
Brooke Greenberg, who has died aged 20, was the nearest thing in science to a real-life Peter Pan; she stopped growing while still a baby and remained, in both physical and mental terms, at the level of a toddler.
Her condition, named Syndrome X because doctors simply did not understand it, is thought to be unique and raised hopes that, by studying her DNA, scientists would gain new insights into the mysteries of ageing and even develop new therapies for diseases associated with the elderly, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Yet although some speculated that a genetic mutation must have switched off her ability to mature, a leading genetics expert found that there were “no apparent abnormalities in her endocrine system, no gross chromosomal abnormalities, or any of the other disruptions known to occur in humans that can cause developmental issues”. As a result she was never diagnosed with any known disorder that would help to explain her condition.
The third of four daughters, Brooke Greenberg was born prematurely on January 8 1993 in Baltimore, Maryland, weighing about four pounds. Doctors had already become concerned by her spasmodic development in the womb, and it soon became clear that she was far from normal. Born with a rare condition called anterior hip dislocation, soon after birth she had to have a major operation and be placed in a cast.
Brooke’s early life was marked by a series of medical emergencies. On one occasion seven holes in her abdominal wall had to be repaired; on another, because food kept entering her windpipe, she had to be fitted with a gastric feeding tube; she also suffered strokes, seizures, ulcers and breathing difficulties.
Aged four she fell into a 14-day coma and doctors diagnosed a brain tumor the size of a lemon. The diagnosis turned out to be wrong and Brooke woke up — but not before her traumatized parents had already made preparations for her funeral, buying a coffin and consulting the rabbi.
By this time Brooke Greenberg had stopped growing in the conventional sense, never gaining a centimeter or putting on a pound, despite early attempts to boost her development with growth hormone. Yet parts of her anatomy continued to mature. While her facial features remained unchanged, and she kept her baby teeth and remained the size of a one year-old, in biological terms her bones matured to those of a 10-year-old child and her hair and finger nails grew normally.
Richard Walker, a professor at the University of South Florida School of Medicine, who led a research team looking into her case, found that the development of her various organ systems, like the digestive tract, was “disassociated”, with different parts developing at different rates, as if they were not a unit but parts of separate organisms.
For 20 years the family, eventually including her younger sister, changed Brooke’s nappies, fed her, rocked her to sleep and took turns to look after her. She learned to pull herself up in her cot, crawl across the floor and whizz along in a specially adapted baby-walker. Though never able to speak, she would smile at people she recognised, giggle when tickled, do finger paintings when presented with paper and paint pot, and experience ordinary human emotions.
Her parents recalled that when her younger sister was born she would cry with jealousy until she too was picked up along with the new baby. As a teenager, they claimed, she began to show a rebellious streak. But that was as far as it went.
The Greenbergs went to specialist after specialist in search of answers which never came, though in recent years it appeared that her health might have stabilized.
The cause of her death has not been disclosed.
Brooke Greenberg, born January 8 1993, died October 24 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10428714/Brooke-Greenberg-obituary.html
