e mentally retarded, but most have normal intelligence and may even be precocious. By age 10, extensive arteriosclerosis and heart disease have developed, and most patients die before they reach 30; the median age of death is 13. A hereditary basis has been suspected, but there is no evidence to support the suspicion, and the cause remains a mystery. Werner's syndrome, sometimes called progeria of the adult, appears in young adulthood or, less commonly, in late adolescence. The aging changes are somewhat less pronounced, so that affected persons look about 30 years older than their chronological age. There is no dwarfism, as growth has been completed by the time the disease appears, but affected persons tend to be slightly shorter than average. Patients with Werner's syndrome are sexually mature, but secondary sex characteristics are poorly developed. Superficial signs of aging are premature balding or graying of hair, loss of teeth and hearing, cataracts, acute arthritic episodes, skin ulcers, and osteoporosis (loss of bony tissue). There is an increased tendency to develop heart disease, diabetes mellitus, and cancer, and the average lifespan is 47 years. This type of progeria is hereditary and is transmitted as a recessive trait, but its underlying cause is unknown....
