A child lives in the body of an old man. Four-year-old Bangladeshi boy looks like an old man
I think that such paintings are very rare these days. I had heard about this picture for a long time; I did not expect anything special or supernatural from it. Even the name David Fincher did not attract me, although behind him are such masterpieces as: “Seven”, “ fight club", "Game". I haven't even seen the trailer. And here is the premiere. There are a lot of flattering reviews online, everyone calls the film a new masterpiece. It comes to a nomination for the Golden Globe Award (I hope it will come to the Oscar). I was immediately drawn to this film. And today, literally half an hour ago, I finished watching. I can't describe how delighted I am. I'm just in love with this movie. Very original, incredibly beautiful, meaningful deep meaning painting. It has everything: acting, proper direction, script, cinematography, sound track. But first things first
Brad Pitt and his Benjamin Button. To tell the truth, I never really liked him. Typical Hollywood actor. But here for the first time I appreciated him seriously. He plays a man who was born with all the symptoms of being 80 year old man. Everyone predicted his death soon, but not everything is so simple. He is gradually starting to get younger. Years pass, people close to Benjamin die, and he becomes younger and younger. Despite his illness, he finds himself loved one, but even here everything turns out to be not so simple. He copes well with his role at any age, I did not expect this from him. Bravo!
Cate Blanchett and her Daisy. Convincing at all ages, on top of that she dances very well ballroom dancing. She plays Benjamin's love interest. Very interesting story love. She left me with only the most positive emotions.
Taraji P. Henson is Benjamin's mother. I'm delighted. Her character is capable of showing love for her neighbor, a person who does not lose hope. She is the owner of a nursing home, one day she finds a baby on her stairs, her friend suggests that she just leave him, but she takes him for herself, despite the child’s deformity. I liked her even a little more than Kate’s character, I hope she will continue to please us with the same works.
Operator's work on high level, all angles are taken correctly, all landscapes look beautiful. I really remember the moment when Benjamin and his father meet the sunrise, it’s very beautiful.
Brad Pitt's character often traveled and visited many countries. Considering the budget of 150 million dollars, I thought that there would be something like an action movie with cool special effects, but I realized that not only Transformers could be made with such a budget. Instead of special effects we get beautiful scenery, incomparable makeup, scenery. I really liked the decorations because they looked spectacular in any year.
In the end, I want to say that you should not miss such films. David Fincher has directed another masterpiece that will please the eye of a movie lover. I am sure that I will watch this film many more times.
Little Yernar Alibekov, living with his mom and dad in Astana, is suffering serious illness– lax skin syndrome. The boy, who is only 4 years old, looks like a little old man and has many more serious diagnoses, one of the most terrible ones is primary immunodeficiency, BNews.kz reports.
Yernar Alibekov. Photo: Zebinsa Alibekova / bnews.kz
To combat immunodeficiency, Yernar needs expensive injections every week. The cost of one dose of medicine is 74 thousand tenge.
“Yernar’s health problems began immediately after birth. After two months, nasolabial folds and swelling appeared. The doctors sent us to a geneticist, who diagnosed lax skin syndrome,”- says the baby’s mother Zebinsa Alibekova.
Alibekov family
According to her, little Yernar suffers from many other diseases: primary immunodeficiency, heart disease, bronchial asthma severe, multiple pulmonary fibrosis.
“All these diseases were acquired gradually. Until he was a year old, Yernar often suffered from colds, after which these diseases began to appear. Before he was a year old, we had three operations, he was constantly choking, and had seizures several times a day,” says the woman.
The Alibekov family are migrants from Tashkent. Yernar is not their first child; before that there was a girl who died at the age of 8 months.
“Everything was normal during pregnancy. Doctors believe that the problem is that my husband and I distant relatives», - says Z. Alibekova.
Now the boy needs an expensive immunomodulatory drug to combat the main diagnosis - primary immunodeficiency. It must be administered via subcutaneous injections, since the child has problems with blood vessels.
“All the vessels are flabby, and it’s impossible to drip medicine intravenously. This drug was already administered once, and Yernar felt better, but it is very expensive. One bottle at a time costs 74 thousand tenge, it must be administered every week for life. We don't have that opportunity.
We contacted the akimat and wrote a letter. We were told to wait a month, at the end of January they will know what the city authorities will decide,” Zebinsa Alibekova told.
The Alibekovs live in a rented room.
“We rent a room, there are a lot of strangers living next door. The child is very allergic, he reacts to everything, to dust, to household factors. I can’t create normal conditions for him,”- the young mother complains.
4 year old Bayazid Hossein(Bayezid Hossain) looks like the tiny old man from the movie " Mysterious story Benjamin Button". Due to congenital progeria(premature aging), both adults and children are afraid of it. Because of this, Bayezid cannot go to school (apparently this means something like a kindergarten).
The boy and his parents live in Magura district, Bangladesh. The child has many problems even without considering his appearance with wrinkled skin, he suffers from joint pain, problems with urination and has weak teeth that fall out easily. At the same time, the boy is precocious and, as they write in the press, has above average intelligence.
His body ages 8 times faster than usual and at 4 years old he looks like a decrepit old man. According to his mother Tripti, when the baby was born, he looked like an alien "Just flesh and bones, it was heartbreaking." Tripti and her husband Lovelu were completely devastated and did not know how to relate to their sick son.
When they returned to their home, the news about unusual boy quickly walked around the area and crowds came to their house to look at him. But the parents and the child did not receive any support; on the contrary, society looked at the baby with great disapproval. The doctors said that they could not do anything and this progeria disease was new to them, they had never seen such children before.
Neighbors began to avoid Bayazid's parents and himself, and gossip spread around the area that the child's illness appeared due to the fact that Tripti and Lovelu were cousins and brother. Although in these rural remote areas such close marriage is a common thing, moreover, Bayazid’s mother is now only 18 years old, and she got married at the age of 13, which is also a completely common practice in these places.
As the boy grew up, it became noticeable that he was ahead of other children in mental development. His mother says he can be stubborn, but he has a sharp mind and knows what he wants and also talks a lot and loves to play.
Over time, society's attitude towards to an unusual child softened slightly, they got used to him and simply called him “old man.” Although Bayazid does not go to school, he loves to play with a ball, draw, and also fixes his toys himself if they break.
The boy's father spent money on various doctors and traditional healers, although he earns little by working as a laborer. But no one could help his trouble. He even carried Bayezid to various “holy places.”
But nothing helped and his condition is getting worse,” says Lovelu, “My son is not normal child and it is a great tragedy for any parent to know that your child is sick and may soon die.
But the boy’s mother says that she is proud of her son because he is smart and friendly, while the baby understands his condition, but does not like to talk about it, only sometimes cries.
Last month, consultant Dibashis Bishwas from the district hospital examined the child and made a final diagnosis - progeria and syndrome cutis laxa(loose skin). According to him, the boy will live to a maximum of 15 years.
15-year-old Nihal Bitla from Indian city Mumbai Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome (progeria). Because of it, the boy's body ages 8 times faster than usual. Nihal's hair has already fallen out, deep wrinkles have appeared and his limbs have become flabby.
Besides external signs accelerated aging, the guy is tormented by health problems.
His joints have lost flexibility, his endurance is deteriorating from year to year, and dislocations are becoming frequent.
Srinivas Bitla, Nihal's father:
My son started to have spots on his body with... early age, but not from birth. It seemed to us that they were not dangerous. But his condition worsened, and we turned to doctors. They said it was genetic disease.
Surprisingly, his brain remains young.
Now the teenager is interested in toy robots, the Internet and drawing.
His 11-year-old sister Vaishnavi helps him with his homework, while Nihal is home-schooled.
Nihal Bitla:
I walk and play with my sister, she takes care of me. If someone starts teasing me, she will deal with the offender.
The boy once went to school and at first even got along with his peers. But after the release of the Bollywood film “Paa” (“Daddy”) about a boy with progeria, Auro, Nihal’s peers began to tease him because of his unusual appearance.
Srinivas Bitla, Nihal's father:
They even laughed at him outside of school. Nihal could not bear it and refused to attend classes. In addition, his health was deteriorating. So we decided to homeschool him.
Progeria is incurable. Nihal realizes this, so he made a wish list.
Nihal Bitla:
I have 3 big dreams. At first I wanted to drive a Lamborghini. I succeeded. Soon I will see the android robot ASIMO. And all that remains is to visit Disneyland Park. Of all the rides, my favorite is the huge Mickey Mouse Ferris wheel!
The Progeria Research Foundation in Boston is developing a drug against cardiovascular complications in order to somehow make life easier for patients. In December 2014, Nihal also underwent treatment with this drug in Boston. The drugs worked, the boy’s health improved noticeably, and his body became more flexible.
The Foundation seeks to draw public attention to the problem.
Audrey Gordon, Chairman and Executive Director of the Progeria Research Foundation:
According to statistics, there are 300-350 patients with progeria living all over the world. However, on at the moment Only 125 are known. So we intend to find the rest. And a third of undiagnosed children live in India. Our organization found only three children in this country. We helped them. We believe that all children suffering from progeria should receive treatment.
Progeria(Greek progērōs prematurely aged) - a pathological condition characterized by a complex of skin changes, internal organs caused by premature aging of the body. The main forms are childhood progeria (Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome) and adult progeria (Werner syndrome).
Childhood progeria is very rare. The etiology and pathogenesis are unknown. In most cases, it occurs sporadically, in several families it is registered in siblings, incl. from consanguineous marriages, which indicates the possibility of an autosomal recessive type of inheritance.
In the skin cells of patients, disturbances in DNA repair and fibroblast cloning were found, as well as atrophic changes in the epidermis and dermis, and the disappearance of subcutaneous tissue. Although childhood P. may be congenital, in most patients clinical signs usually appear in the 2-3rd year of life.
The child's growth slows down sharply, atrophic changes in the dermis and subcutaneous tissue are noted, especially on the face and limbs. The skin becomes thinner, becomes dry, wrinkled, and there may be scleroderma-like lesions and areas of hyperpigmentation on the body. Veins are visible through thin skin. Appearance patient: large head, frontal tubercles protrude above a small, pointed (“bird-like”) face with a beak-shaped nose, the lower jaw is underdeveloped.
Muscle atrophy and degenerative processes in teeth, hair and nails are also observed; changes in the osteoarticular apparatus, myocardium, hypoplasia of the genital organs, impaired fat metabolism, clouding of the lens, and atherosclerosis are noted.
Lena ages five years in a year
Yesterday, at a Moscow clinic, doctors performed the first operation on a patient suffering from premature aging syndrome.
At first, my earlobes began to sag strangely. Then I noticed amazingly deep wrinkles between my eyebrows,” says the 23-year-old girl.
When you first look at Lena Melnikova, you even begin to doubt. Well, how is this a cunning, bored 40-50 year old lady who desires wide fame and plastic surgery from the best surgeons?! Unfortunately, this has already happened.
This is what she looks like now at 23 years old
I can’t even dare to ask Lena about her personal life... Although the girl smiles courageously:
Everything is fine.
Lena has practically no chance. Diagnosis: “premature aging syndrome” (“progeria”). Medical luminaries around the world say that from the moment of illness, people live on average only 13 years. And no one knows how to restore youth or at least calm down old age...
Lena began to experience terrible symptoms five years ago. First, the face aged, and then the skin of the whole body. Elena was then a first-year student at the Mari Polytechnic Institute.
You know, how offensive it was... Guys come up to meet my friend and treat me with emphatic politeness, mistaking me for my mother. They almost asked permission to meet with their “daughter.”
After graduating from the Mari Polytechnic University, the girl decided to have plastic surgery. But a banal circular facelift did not help. She only left scars on her neck and temples. The mysterious process of aging of the body continued. Local doctors were able to advise Elena only one thing - take vitamins and be constantly monitored.
The girl - by the way, a certified engineer-architect - did not despair and went to Moscow. Melnikova became interested in an expensive metropolitan clinic plastic surgery"Beauty Plaza". Its specialists decided to help the provincial woman in trouble. And completely free.
We decided to try it. If it is generally accepted that nothing can be done, then you need to at least try,” said the clinic’s leading surgeon, Dr. medical sciences Professor Alexander TEPLYASHIN. - Although it is not safe to operate on Elena, because the disease could also affect the condition of the internal organs.
She's so young! She needs to live normally, communicate with young people. First, we’ll make a face, and then we’ll start fighting the disease at the genetic level,” Professor Teplyashin is determined.
“I really trust the professor,” Elena Melnikova persistently convinces us. It looks like she is also convincing herself.
Yesterday morning Elena arrived at the clinic. They began to prepare her for surgery. They allocated a separate room where she waited. While Professor Teplyashin is also preparing for his very difficult work. A quarter of an hour before the operation, Elena is calm.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she repeats and repeats. And in the end he still sobs. Some time ago, the girl was seriously thinking about committing suicide.
The time appointed for the operation arrived. Lena gets up and, looking straight ahead, strides into the bowels of the clinic with an emphatically firm gait. Suddenly she pauses for a minute and speaks clearly more to herself than to those around her: “I was very afraid of the first operation, but now I’m already having a second one. And I have no choice. My last hope" - And resolutely steps towards the anesthesiologist.
The clinic's doctors allowed the photographer into the holy of holies - the aesthetic surgery operating room. The first stage of the operation is the chest. The doctor makes an incision in the skin on the chest and prepares a special bioimplant. The composition is one of the secrets of the clinic. The main thing is no foreign silicone. Like dough, Professor Teplyashin vigorously kneads the implant so that the pliable material almost seeps between his fingers. And finally places it in the body. Second, and main stage- face. And the first difficulty here is to eliminate the scars and deficiencies of the previous plastic surgery. The spectacle is not for the faint of heart. But everything seems to be going well...
After Lena Melnikova there will be a special a rehabilitation course in the clinic, geneticists and cell biologists will develop an individual biotechnological treatment program especially for her, which should end with an injection of stem cells. These cells are supposed to expel old age from a young body...
Once upon a time, the beautiful and smart 18-year-old student Melnikova had many fans. But when the disease began to develop, there was only one left who truly loves. The girl does not say his name, but she is sure that he is very worried and is waiting for her in Yoshkar-Ola. In the meantime, in Moscow, unemployed engineer-architect Melnikova lives with her brother.
People first started talking about premature aging syndrome 100 years ago. And not surprisingly, such cases occur once in 4-8 million babies. Progeria (from the Greek pro - earlier, gerontos - old man) is an extremely rare genetic disease that accelerates the aging process by about 8-10 times.
Simply put, a child ages 10-15 years in one year. An eight-year-old looks 80 years old - with dry, wrinkled skin, a bald head... These children usually die at 13-14 years old after several heart attacks and strokes against the background of progressive atherosclerosis, cataracts, glaucoma, total loss teeth, etc. And only a few live to 20 years or longer.
Currently, only 42 cases of people with progeria are known in the world... Of these, 14 people live in the United States, 5 in Russia, the rest in Europe...
Features of such patients include dwarf stature, low weight (usually not exceeding 15-20 kg), excessively thin skin, poor joint mobility, underdeveloped chin, small face compared to the size of the head, which gives the person bird-like features. Because of the loss subcutaneous fat all vessels are visible. The voice is usually high. Mental development corresponds to age. And all these sick children are strikingly similar to each other.
12-year-old Seth Cook looks like an 80-year-old man. He has no hair, but he has the full range of diseases that older people suffer from. Therefore, every day the boy takes aspirin and other blood thinning medications. At 3 feet tall (just over a meter), Seth weighs 25 pounds (11.3 kg).
Ouri Barnett was born on April 16, 1996. Already at the age of five, poor Ouri began ischemic disease hearts. The attacks followed one after another. The baby often ended up in the hospital, but he had to be treated with the means that are usually prescribed to older people.
Ouri looked like a man who had suffered a stroke: his legs were weakening, and he began to stumble like a decrepit old man. His eyes were fading upper lip did not move, drooled, speech became unintelligible.
Ouri's mother did a lot to convey to people her experience and her observations of the unfortunate child. From the age of three, the child was taken to filming television programs and scientific conferences. The only condition that the mother set for sensation-hungry journalists was that they should not write that the baby was dying of progeria.
Most famous case progeria, described in Russian press- the story of Alvydas Gudelyauskas, who suddenly began to grow old when he was already a 20-year-old guy. In just a matter of months, Alvidas turned into a 60-year-old man before our eyes. It was only after plastic surgery that he began to look like a mature man. In the photo on the left - this is what he looked like before the operation, on the right - after. Now Alvidas is only 32 years old.
Until recently, doctors were unable to determine the cause of the disease. And only recently, American researchers discovered that the cause of “childhood old age” or Hutchinson-Gilford progeria is only a single mutation.
According to the director of the National Genome Research Institute, Francis Collins, who led the study, the disease is not hereditary. A point mutation - when only one nucleotide is changed in a DNA molecule - occurs anew in each patient. People suffering from progeria die mainly from those illnesses that are characteristic of extreme old age. It has now been discovered that progeria is caused by a mutated form of the LMNA gene.
Seven year old man and his family
Children of the Khans. Rehena, Ali Hussein and Ikramul suffer from a rare disease. He's only seven years old, but he's already going bald. This is the most noticeable of the many symptoms of the disease that Ali Hussain Khan suffers from. He is still a boy, but he is already in middle age. This progeria, an extremely rare disease, causes Ali's body to age prematurely.
Neither he nor his sister and brother - 19-year-old Rehena and 17-year-old Ikramul - have virtually no chance of living to 25.
This disease accelerates the development of children many times over. However, it also causes other problems: for example, a second row of teeth appears in their mouth, and the skin becomes very pale, almost transparent.
Such children get sick with what ordinary people suffer in old age. Last year, their sister Ravena, who also suffered from progreria, died of pneumonia. She was 16.
As soon as Ali Hussein begins to speak, it becomes clear that he is captured by childish enthusiasm and absorbed by hopes that are not characteristic of an adult.
“I would like to be an actor, drive cars and planes, be an action hero,” he says. “And then I would like to become a doctor, because doctors test me all the time, and I would like to test myself, and that’s why I wanted I would like to become a doctor someday."
Khany is unique in this sense: it is the only known to science a case when more than one family member suffers from progreria. And thanks to this family, scientists were able to make a real breakthrough in understanding the nature of the disease.
Scientists led by pediatrician Chandan Chattopadhyay observed Khanami for two years and came to the conclusion that the disease is hereditary and recessive. This means that both parents can have her gene. In this case, Hana's husband and wife are each other's cousins. Neither of them has progreria, nor do their two other children - 14-year-old Sangeeta and two-year-old Gulavsa.
IN recent years looks after the family charitable organization from Kolkata. The head of the family, Bisul Khan, says life has treated him and his wife Rajia cruelly. Both of them are natives of one of the villages Indian state Bihar. Locals their children were called aliens, and as a result they had to grow up in complete isolation.
“When we lived there in Bihar, every evening we sat in the room, unable to sleep, because one of the children was suffering from something, then the other,” Khan recalls. “And we thought - me and my wife, we sat down side by side and thought: how can we continue to live? We even thought about ending it all in one fell swoop..."
“But now the children live,” says the father. “They are energetic, they are happy, they live normal life"as far as possible, of course."
For the past two years, Khanami has been looked after by Sekhar Chattopadhyay, the head of the ABC Devi charity house in Kolkata. They now live in this city, although their exact address is kept secret.
The charity organization helped my father find a job as a security guard, but his salary is small, so they also help financially. But no less important than the money are the normal human contacts that the children acquired with the help of the charity.
“We support them and we have become friends,” says Chattopadhyay and bounces Ali Hussain on his knee. “Slowly I became friends with this family, and you just can’t imagine how much they love me.”
Thanks to his support, the Khans say, they now live much more life to the fullest than before. They smile when they talk about their interests and hobbies.
Rehena says she loves Indian films, especially passionate love songs. When I ask if she sings herself, she says that she is shy, but it is still clear that she wants to demonstrate her abilities, and, having received approval, agrees to try.
"I love loving you, and when I don't see you, I can't wait until we meet again," she sings in Hindi.
Based on materials from various sources
