Tree man: Weird disease turns man into tree!

Dede lives in a remote village in Indonesia. At 32 years-old, he has an extraordinary skin condition; he has root like structures growing out of his body - branches that can grow up to 5cm a year and which protrude from his hands and feet, and welts covering his whole body. Dede's problem is that he has a rare genetic fault that impedes his immune system, meaning his body is unable to contain the warts. The virus was therefore able to "hijack the cellular machinery of his skin cells", ordering them to produce massive amounts of the substance that caused the tree-like growths known as "cutaneous horns" on his hands and feet. Dede's counts of a key type of white blood cell are so low that Dr Gaspari initially suspected he may have the Aids virus. But tests showed he did not, and it became clear that Dede's immune condition was something far rarer and more mysterious. Warts aside, he had enjoyed remarkable good health throughout his life - which would not be expected of someone with a suppressed immune system - and neither his parents nor his siblings have shown signs of developing lesions. "The likelihood of having his deficiency is less than one in a million," Dr Gaspari told the Telegraph. Dr Gaspari, who became involved in the case through a Discovery Channel documentary, believes that Dede's condition can be largely cleared up by a daily doses of a synthetic form of Vitamin A, which has been shown to arrest the growth of warts in severe cases of HPV. + Info here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

Channel: People & Blogs
Uploaded: November 16, 2007 at 6:24 am
Author: fnbfwo39

Length: 01:57
Rating: 4.92
Views: 132389

Tags: amazing  body  fnbfwo39  indonesian  interesting  man  root  tree  unbelievable  weird  

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