The tale of the teenage toddlers

The tale of the teenage toddlers
By STAFF REPORTERS
Published: 10 Feb 2009

THIS brother and sister might look like cute primary school children but they are actually grown-up TEENAGERS aged 18 and 16.
Shockingly Azad Singh and his sister Laxmi Yadav have not grown at all since they were five or six and still look like little kids.

See incredible pics of the teen tots below:


Neither of the pair, who live in Haryana, India, have been through puberty due to a rare hormone disorder.

Azad is just 3ft tall but is studying for A-Levels in English and Maths with the help of a tutor, and Laxmi, who is 3ft 3ins, is at high school taking the equivalent of her GCSEs.


Mates ... Azad with his school chums
Barcroft Media
The pair face being trapped in children's bodies for their rest of their lives as treatment in the form of hormone injections would normally be given before the age of 16 or 17.

A simple, one-year, course of hormones costing just £18 per day could have allowed them to grow in height and develop sexually.

But the teens parents have always been too poor to fund the injections.

The pair now live in the constant care of mum Manju Bala, dad Bahadur Singh, a casual labourer, and sister Suman Yadav, 12, who is normal height.

Azad, who wants to train as an engineer, said: “I’m taking my exams in April. I’m doing a lot of revision and hard work.


Drive ... tiny Azad takes the wheel
Barcroft Media
“When I go out, such as to walk to my tutor’s house, my mum has to come with me.

“People think I’m still a kid and need looking after.”

He added: “If Laxmi or I go out alone, people stare and gather round us. Some unkind people even shout names at us in the street. So we normally have our parents or sister Suman with us.

“I cannot hang out with boys my age, because they say I cannot keep up with them. But I have two friends at school who spend time with me, and don’t mind that I’m small.”

Laxmi added: “When we were younger our parents had to change our school because the other kids laughed at us because of our size.”

Devoted mum Manju said: “I’m very protective of my children. If I do not accompany Azad when he goes out, people throw things at him on his bike, and might harm him.”

She explained: “When Azad and Laxmi were very young, they were the same size as other children. We didn’t realise anything was wrong until Azad was about five and we noticed he stopped growing.

“When Laxmi also reached five, she’d stopped growing too. We took them to the doctor but he had no idea what was wrong with them.

“Over the years we’ve been referred to many hospitals, but they all wanted payment for any treatment.

“We went to hospitals in Kalavati, Gangaram, but everywhere they were asking for huge money for the treatment. We were not able to afford it, so we had to leave.”

She added: “Once we looked into selling our house to get 15,000 rupees (2,910 pounds) for treatment. But the doctors at Gangaram Hospital could not guarantee us that the injections would work by this stage as Azad and Laxmi were older, so we decided no to go ahead.”

Finally, last year, the family were offered a lifeline by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Dehli, who looked into providing free treatment for the brother and sister.

But when the Azad and Laxmi arrived at the hospital, crowds of patients, visitors, and even people from the street went into to the ward to stare at them.

“We could not face all those people,” said Laxmi. “It was too frightening for Azad and me. We felt we would rather stay as we were than go through that.

“We decided we did not want the treatment, as doctors said there was only about a 40 to 50 per cent chance it would work.”

Stem Cell Heart Trials in UK

Trials for revolutionary stem cell surgery in UK 'within a year'
Heart disease patients in Britain could soon take part in a revolutionary stem cell surgery trial that could change the nature of heart surgery andHeart disease patients in Britain could soon take part in a revolutionary stem cell surgery trial that could change the nature of heart surgery and ultimately end the need for transplants.
By Caroline Gammell
Last Updated: 4:31PM GMT 09 Feb 2009

Heart disease affects more than a million people in the UK and kills around 120,000 people a year Photo: GETTY
It is believed that British patents could take the pioneering treatment, in which a patient's own cells are extracted and grown in a laboratory, in as little as a year.
Scientists have worked out a technique where human bone marrow cells are turned into human heart stem cells and then injected into the heart.
Laboratory grown heart stem cells were initially extensively tested on animals and trials on humans in Europe are due to start later this month.
Dr Jonathan Hill, a consultant cardiologist at London's King's College Hospital, is hoping to perform trials on British patients next year in conjunction with King's College London University.
"I have seen the results of the trials and they are very encouraging," he said. "We are negotiating to carry out human trials in the UK."
Professor Sian Harding, of Imperial College London, said being able to convert bone marrow stem cells into heart stem cell was a "big leap forward" in finding an "effective" treatment for heart failure.
"Placing heart stem cells into the heart to repair has a very good chance of working because the stem cells are the patient's own there are no problems with rejection," she said.
Prof Harding is working on turning embryo stem cells into heart stem cells but said her research was "still years away" from being used in patients.
Dr Duncan Dymond, a consultant cardiologist at London's Bart's Hospital, added: "Turning human stem cells into human heart cells is very exciting news.
"People with bad heart failure often lead a wretched life confined to home and unable to get out and about. If you are lucky you might get a heart transplant but many simply die before their time."
Last month, a method of cloning specialist versions of heart stem cells - known as "progenitor" cells - found in small quantities in human hearts received an international innovation award.
Last year, the Daily Telegraph disclosed how two heart attack patients in Britain had stem cells taken from bone marrow injected into their hearts in a bid to repair damaged tissue.
The most recent process was developed at the Mayo Clinic research centre in Minnesota.
As part of the planned human trials, 40 millilitres of bone marrow will be taken from a volunteer's hips.
The bone marrow is then grown in a laboratory into human heart stem cells using a special 'growth factor' protein.
The growth factor delivers a chemical signal to the stem cells to turn them from bone marrow cells into heart cells.
These cells are then infused into the patient's heart via a catheter in the groin and an improvement in a patient's condition is expected within a couple of weeks.
The development was disclosed during a major stem cell conference in New York and has been submitted to a leading medical journal.
Dr Christian Homsy of Cardio3 Biosciences - the company which is developing human heart stem cells - said: "Human heart stem cells repaired damaged areas of mice hearts in our trials. And we are convinced that we can do the same in humans.
"It is a very straightforward procedure and we would expect to see a patient's health to change quite rapidly over a period of several weeks to a couple of months. In the mouse trials it was quite quick but in humans we don't know yet."
Heart disease affects more than a million people in the UK and kills around 120,000 people a year.