"Jaw-dropping strength. Breath-taking speed. Phenomenal agility. Olympian feats."
With origins and abilities worthy of fitting a comic book hero, these are words that reporters and doctors have used to describe Liam Hoekstra. The thing is this: Liam is only a toddler.
Born only 19 months ago, Liam came into the world with many birth defects. He had a small hole in his heart, enlarged kidneys, frequently vomited and was born four weeks premature. Medical records indicated that his biological father was "unusually strong".
Due to conditional circumstance, Liam was adopted at birth by the Hoekstra family.
Little did the family know that they were adopting a child with a very rare and special genetic condition.
The Hoekstra's quickly began to notice Liam being able to do things out of the ordinary. Two days after birth, he was able to fully stand-up and support his own weight, given someone held his hands. Months later he began developing ripped abs, naturally doing pull-ups, inverted sit-ups, Olympic styled iron cross, thigh muscles compared to that of Lance Armstrong and even punching holes into walls during tantrums (accidentally gave his Mom a black eye once as well).
What really amazed his family was what happened whenever he fell.
"When he fell backward, he would land on his butt, but he never hit his head on the ground," Dana Hoekstra said. "His stomach would tense up and he would catch himself before his head hit the ground. You could see his stomach muscles. He had a little six-pack," said his adoptive mother, Dana, in an interview.
After further investigation into Liam's ability, doctor's found he was genetically unique as he has a condition called myostatin related muscle hypertrophy.
In Liam's case, his body's muscles reject myostatin, allowing them to undergo quick growth and repair.
What does that entail, exactly?
Liam can expect to have up to 50% more muscle mass than average, ridiculous levels of strength, fast metabolism, and hardly any body fat. His mother mentions, "Liam has never had any body fat...the only fat he has is in his cheeks."
Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy is a condition that is still somewhat new to scientific scrutiny, and until 2000, was not adequately documented as occurring in humans. Before this time, the best known example was that from ridiculously buff Belgian Blue cattle, a picture of which is below.
While this condition is extremely rare in humans, to the point where doctors cannot predict with significant confidence how many people would have it worldwide, there were some concerns about Liam's lack of fat, which is needed for proper neurological development. Fortunately, like the other mentioned conditions that were present at his birth (all of which healed and subsided), Liam amazingly has shown little to no problems.
The biggest concern right now for the Hoekstra family is keeping Liam fed and at ideal weights. With his enlarged muscles and super-fast metabolism, odds are he can probably down his fair share of giant steaks.
Make sure to check out the source link below for more on this story, it is pretty neat.
Source:
CTV
