An unfilled niche in the medical field!! THE AGEING DISEASE!!

Imagine yourself being aged 10 years, every year. It sounds like something from a fairy tale. In the real world, this is known as 'progeria' syndrome, which is just one of what are called 'progeria' syndromes. 

These are basically genetic disorders that seem to fast forward the aging process. You've heard of two fairly common diseases that fall into this category, that affect older people. Those are Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Progeria is different, as sadly it starts manifesting at a very young age. So, by the time children are aged just a few years, they already resemble a much older person.

The Progeria Research Foundation tells us that, the full name given to this disease is Hutchinson gilford progeria syndrome, named after the two people that discovered it and wrote about it in the 19th century. The first part progeria actually comes from

grit and means premature aging. The basis of this disorder is a faulty gene and scientists explain that the absence of the laminae protein makes the nucleus of cells

unstable and has the effect of very speeded up aging. This doesn't mean of course

that they young people have the wisdom of the age or that they're old in any way in their mind.

What happens in this, is the body ages, meaning these people as early as two years old may start to have a wrinkled appearance. They lose their hair, they have stiff joints, have a high-pitched voice, a larger head, a thin nose and unfortunately may experience all kinds of problems associated with older age, including arthrosclerosis and heart disease. They might also suffer many other diseases that people don't usually get until their autumn years. These differences in physicality don't exactly mean the children age and look as if they would have if they aged normally.

People with progeria often look quite alike. According to various sources, it can affect any race and occurs in both males and females across the globe at about the same frequency. You can usually tell someone has progeria at around 18 to 24 months. The first signs might be loss of all body hair and head hair as well as a small pinch nose. Appearance of many veins visible through the skin in the absence of growth including what looks like a very small face, but a large head. This won't happen to many young people with progeria. It's said to affect one in about 4 million people.

There's no cure yet and most of the sufferers can only expect to make it into their teens or in very few cases perhaps the early 20s. The reason for their premature death is almost always related to their heart, such as having a stroke or having a heart attack. These young kids may have some kind of heart surgery to extend their life. But, no amount of medical procedures so far have managed to prevent serious heart associated problems for very long.

One of the people who survived the longest with this disorder became something of a celebrity. His name was Leon Botha and he lived a full life until his death aged 26. This South African man was a DJ a hip-hop artist, a writer, photographer and a painter.