2-year-old boy eats every hour to stop his body eating his own muscles

12:34 - 28 October 2015

Meet the 2-year old boy who eats every hour, not because he loves doing so, but to prevent his body from breaking down his own muscles.

Owen Tori, 2, suffers from a rare genetic condition called a fatty-acid metabolism disorder—which stops the toddler’s body from breaking down fat and converting it into energy. So, if his body runs out of energy, his body starts breaking down the muscles.

Owen was only seven days old when he was diagnosed with the fatty-acid metabolism disorder known as LCHAD, or Long-chain 3-hydroxy acyl-coenzyme A dehyrogenese.

This condition has landed Owen in the hospital 12 times in 20 months.

Owen's mom Kayla Tori told ABC News that her son had a gastronomy tube, which delivers the special medial formula Lipistart directly to his stomach, inserted at 16 months to assist him with feeding.

Kayla and husband Tyler are working to give their son as much of a normal life as possible, although it hasn't been an easy feat with the lack of information regarding the disorder.

However, Kayla has started a website filled with the low-fat recipes necessary for people with LCHAD and other fatty-acid metabolism disorders to maintain a healthy life.

The story also features a blog sharing stories and tips from other families whose children have also been affected.

'Our hope is that if somebody next year is diagnosed with LCHAD and the parents are online Googling, trying to figure out what this stuff is, they might find us and feel this sort of sense of peace,' the couple said.

The number of LCHAD diagnoses per birth is unknown, although one estimate from Finland says it occurs in 1 in 62,000 pregnancies.

LCHAD follows an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern, meaning if both parent carry a single copy of the gene that causes the disorder, the children can have it too.

Watch the video of his story below.