Brit girl, 7, risks brain damage if she eats any protein

LONDON - A young British girl, who suffers from a rare condition, faces the risk of brain damage if she eats anything that has protein in it.

Borsi Batki, 7, from Coventry, can have only fruits and vegetables, and a protein replacement supplement she has to drink six times a day, due to the extremely rare metabolic condition.

The little girl suffers from phenylketonuria (PKU), a metabolic disorder which if undetected leads to problems with brain development, progressive mental retardation, brain damage, and seizures.

Her condition, spotted when she was six days old when a routine test in her native Hungary showed abnormalities in her blood, means her body cannot process the amino acid phenylalanine, which is found in most protein-rich foods.

Borsi lives with her mother Maria and father Zsolt, 37, plus eight-month-old brother Ben and sister Biborka, nine.

“Pretty much everything is off the menu. She can’t eat any meat, normal pasta, bread, fish and yoghurt,” the Daily Mail quoted her mother Maria, 37, as saying.

“We try not to eat much meat and to eat a lot of fruit and veg, but sometimes she prefers not to eat with us because it’s too hard for her.

“The thing about PKU is that it isn’t like diabetes - you don’t see the affects straightaway. If Borsi has a meatball or a bite of cake, she will seem fine on the outside.

“But if she carries on the toxins gradually collect in her body, poisoning her brain.

“This is why so many families find it hard to stick to the diet, because they don’t see the harm in giving them a little bit here and there.

“Thankfully Borsi is very advanced and mature for her age so she knows very well what she is and isn’t allowed to eat,” she added.

Just one in 15,000 children are born with the condition, which is caused by a genetic mutation. (ANI)