8-Year-Old Never Ages, Could Be a Clue to 'Biological Immortality’
8-year-old girl from Billing, Montana, weighs only 11 pounds, still has the skin and facial features of a newborn child. The 8-year-old girl never ages. She is still dependent on her mother. The 8-year-old girl still has to be fed, her diapers still needs to have her diapers changed. The 8-year-old never ages, she is the same as the day she was born.
The 8-year-old who never ages is named Gabby Williams and doctors have been trying to figure out why the aging process has stopped for two years. There are two other people that they know of who have the same characteristics. A 29-year old man in Florida has the body of a 10-year-old. A 31-year-old woman in Brazil is the same size of a 2-year old. They have all seemed to stop growing.
The children have the similar characteristics to the “Benjamin Button” movie character.
The TLC network will air a television special called "40-Year-Old Child: A New Case," that explores the similarities between these people on Monday, Aug. 19, at 10 p.m. ET. TLC ran a story on Gabby Williams last year
Medical researcher Richard F. Walker who is retired from the University of Florid Medical School and now is a researcher for All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., told ABCNews.com "In some people, something happens to them and the development process is retarded. The rate of change in the body slows and is negligible. My whole career has been focused on the aging process. My fixation has been not on the consequences but the cause of it."
These children age at one fifth the speed of other people, but also have other medical problems. Some are deaf. Some cannot walk or eat.
Mary Margret Williams, Gabrielle’s mother said, "Gabrielle hasn't changed since pretty much forever. 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. Other than that, she hasn't changed much since the [2012] show."