She is about to start driving and soon will be able to legally buy alcohol and get married, but Poppy Webb-Jones still looks and thinks like a ten-year-old girl. Unlike other 17-year-olds, Poppy is more interested in Hannah Montana and Justin Bieber than wearing make-up, experimenting with boys or staying out late. This is due to a rare condition which means she was born without any hormones, meaning she has never gone through puberty, never had a growth spurt and never thrown a teenage tantrum. To many parents of teenagers, Poppy must sound like the perfect child, but unbeknown to her or her mother Karen Webb-Meek, her condition posed a deadly risk to her health throughout her whole childhood. Poppy was born with a condition called panhypopituitarism meaning she lacks most of the hormones essential for life. Hypopituitarism is the decreased secretion of one or more of the eight hormones normally produced by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain. If there is decreased secretion of most pituitary hormones, the term panhypopituitarism (pan meaning "all") is used. Poppy has no growth hormone, meaning her bones stopped growing around the age of 11, and she has no thyroxine, which regulates the metabolism and energy levels. In addition she has no oestrogen, which controls the onset of puberty and the development of secondary sexual characteristics.
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HUDDLED together on a branch, a pair of adorable Javan scops owls soak up the sun .
FINALLY catching a meal, a pair of great white egrets fight over their dinner .
A BROWN bear wades through waters in Alaska and waits for his lunch .
A German photographer travelled around Africa where he met and photographed members of tribes in a series of intimate portraits .
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WITH SNOW COVERING the ground around them, these two polar bears play fight .
HUNDREDS of hot air balloons decorate the sky above Turkey as the rising sun illuminates the spectacular scenery below .
TOMORROW (Saturday) marks the 28th anniversary of the nuclear disaster that left the city of Chernobyl devastated .
A grey whale and her calf greet an audience of awestruck admirers on the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico .