Health

Watch – World’s oldest ‘Benjamin Button’ – 21-y-o man has body of someone who is 160

A 21-year-old man who has the body of a 160 YEAR-OLD is thought to be the world’s oldest real life case of ‘Benjamin Button’. Rupesh Kumar, who weighs just 20kg, has aged EIGHT times faster than normal due to Hutchison-Gilford progeria. The condition affects one in eight million people and he is believed to be the oldest survivor after the death of South African Leon Botha at the age of 26.

Rupesh, from Hanumanganj in in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, was born normal but began to show signs of the condition as a young boy. His desperate parents have written to India’s Prime Minister pleading for help as they struggle to cope.

The disorder is said to have inspired the F Scott Fitzgerald novel and Brad Pitt movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which the character is born an old man and ages backwards.

Mr Kumar started to show signs of the disease as a young boy. His father Ramapati Kumar, 45, a farm labourer, said: ‘It all started with frequent headaches and stomach pains when he was very small.

‘We took him to several doctors, but none of them could diagnose his condition.

‘They prescribe a few painkillers and ask us to go home.’

‘Over time, my son’s head grew abnormally big and he started shedding weight drastically.’

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Joe Mellor

Head of Content

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