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Sang Zixuan is 7 years old, and his brother Sang Ziheng is 6 - yet they look like old men. The children suffer a rare early-aging condition, or progeria, that none of the doctors who visited their family at a village of Luyi county in Henan province could diagnose or treat, said their grandfather Sang Fayu. Both looked like normal children in their first year. Sang Zixuan was plump and healthy when he was born, and Sang Ziheng could speak a few simple words by the time he was a year old. But in their second year, things changed. The boys developed skin conditions, their bones became fragile and they lost the ability to speak. The family took the children to many medical agencies nationwide, including some of the most advanced hospitals in Henan and Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, but none could treat the rare disease. "The doctors just gave my grandchildren some physical checks, and they could not prescribe any medicine for the symptoms," Sang said. The children's parents have spent almost 600,000 yuan ($95,000), mostly borrowed from relatives, after their savings ran out, seeking medical treatment. Their parents started working recently on a construction site in Tianjin in order to earn the money for medical expenses, while the boys live with their grandparents. Sang Fayu told local media last week that the family is willing to send either child to take part in clinical drug trials at any hospital or center that would care to research progeria, in the hope of developing a cure or effective treatment. | 
