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.
IN THE not so MISTY MOUNTAINS of Wiltshire, there lies an abandoned hobbit house .
A grey whale and her calf greet an audience of awestruck admirers on the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico .
THIS astonishing film shows the moment a hit-and-run driver ploughed into a woman and a toddler on a Coventry street .
The rock restaurant, located in Zanzibar – THIS unique restaurant really does boast breath-taking views - as it is perched on a rock in the middle of the sea .
MASKED intruders look sinister but really they are a gang of urban exploring pranksters .
A mischievous fox cub demonstrates his playful side by biting his sibling’s tail .
With no luck at the front of the bus, the deer runs around the center seats trying to escape through the window – THIS is the astonishing moment a DEER crashed through the front windshield of a bus before it went hysterically running around the vehicle .
A Birmingham man inspired by sci-fi film Wall-E, has created a one- wheeled vehicle, controlled by signals from his BRAIN .
NEVER mind being careful not to choke on your food, this mother bird has a bigger challenge on her hands, as her ravenous offspring impatiently launches its head down into her stomach .
BOXING DAY has come early for this pair of feisty squirrels, as their Christmas party quickly turns sour .
THIS is the EXPLOSIVE moment when a 50 metre high pylon came crashing down to earth in a rural field .