Darren's mother is from Cebu in the Philippines, and has Filipino, Chinese, and Spanish ancestry. Darren's father is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has English, and some German and Northern Irish, ancestry.
Description. While dwarfism is sometimes used to describe achondroplasia, a condition characterized by short stature and disproportionately short arms and legs, it is also used more broadly to refer to a variety of conditions resulting in unusually short stature in both children and adults.
The gene for achondroplasia, the most common type of dwarfism, was discovered in 1994. Achondroplasia is caused by a gene mutation that is the same in 98% of the cases. The mutation, affecting growth, especially in the long bones, occurs early in fetal development in one out of every twenty thousand births.