Rare Genetic Condition Makes 10-Year-Old Boy Feel Constantly Hungry

David, a 10-year-old boy from Singapore, was diagnosed with Prader-Willi Syndrome, a complex genetic condition that makes him feel hungry no matter how much he eats.

Imagine filling your stomach with copious amounts of nutritious food and never actually experiencing that sensation of fullness that we know as ‘satiety’. That is what David Soo, a 10-year-old boy from Singapore has to deal with every day of his life. He suffers from a complex rare disease called Prader-Willi Syndrome, which, among other serious symptoms, leaves sufferers feeling hungry regardless of how much they eat. It is caused by the loss of function of genes in a certain region of chromosome 15, and it is incurable.

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Insatiable 10-Year-Old Boy Weighs 90 Kg, Eats Anything He Gets His Hands On

At age 10, Caden Benjamin, from Mpumalanga, South Africa already tips the scales at a whopping 90 kg. He suffers from a rare genetic disorder known as Prader-Willi syndrome, which makes him feel hungry all the time.

Caden was always a hungry child, but his mother, Zola, realized that there was something unusual about his appetite at age 3, when he already weighed 40 kilograms. He took the boy to several doctors, but no one could explain why he was so hungry all the time and gaining so much weight. Finally, a doctor at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria ran some tests and diagnosed Caden with Prader-Willi syndrome, an incurable condition that affects about 20 000 people worldwide.

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