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.
FROM MRS Patmore to Lady Sybil, these barking mad illustrations show the WOOF-er side of some of our most loved Downton characters .
This cheeky chappie is getting into all kinds of monkey business as he enjoys cooling off on a scorching hot day .
PERCHED on a branch, these two frogs hold hands as they look into the camera .
HUDDLED together in the hollow of a tree, it would be easy to overlook these two sleepy owls as they blend into the trunk .
A German photographer travelled around Africa where he met and photographed members of tribes in a series of intimate portraits .
PERCHED on a branch, this Little Owl plays third wheel to two love birds .
In the calm waters of Greenland, gigantic icebergs dwarf everything around them .
Hot on the heels of a little rabbit, this cheetah is on a mission to catch his prey .
IT'S the iconic TV show that influenced a whole generation in the 1990s .
IN THE not so MISTY MOUNTAINS of Wiltshire, there lies an abandoned hobbit house .
TOMORROW (Saturday) marks the 28th anniversary of the nuclear disaster that left the city of Chernobyl devastated .
Pic By Graham Gibson/ HotSpot Media - SHARK HYPNOTIST BALANCES SHARK IN PALM OF HIS HAND- In Pic - Diver Tom and Caribbean reef sharks in the Bahamas- A SHARK hypnotist balances these predators in the palm of his hand by sending them to sleep with a gentle nose rub .