28-year-old Sammy Basso, the longest living person with premature aging syndrome, died in Schio, Italy. This was reported by Reuters.
Basso was diagnosed with progeria when he was two years old, according to the agency. In 2005 he and his family founded the Italian Association against Progeria. Basso rose to fame in the National Geographic documentary Sammy’s Journey, in which he traveled with his parents and best friend along U.S. Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles.
In progeria, people experience changes in the skin and internal organs due to premature aging of the body. As stated on the website of the Italian Progeria Society, people with this disease have a poor quality of life and the time without treatment is approximately 13.5 years.
Last year geneticist Konstantin Krutovsky said “socialbites.ca” says that before the genetic control of progeria was known, some scientists hypothesized that there was some kind of aging program that was activated very early in people with this disease. They thought that since there was such a program, they could cancel it and therefore extend the lives of healthy people, but this turned out to be wrong.
Previously dead oldest person in the world.