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Real Giants: The World's Tallest People

KeyserXSoze

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World's Tallest Living Man Wants To Stop Growing Now

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By ANNA MELNICHUK, Associated Press Writer

PODOLIANTSI, Ukraine - At age 33, Leonid Stadnik wishes he would stop growing. He's already 8 feet, 4 inches. Recent measurements show that Stadnik is already 7 inches taller than Radhouane Charbib of Tunisia, listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest living man. He's also gaining on the 8-11 Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in history.

Yet for Stadnik, the prospect of becoming a record-holder would be little comfort.

"My two-year-old suit's sleeves and pants are now 30 centimeters (12 inches) shorter than I need," said Stadnik. "My height is God's punishment. My life has no sense."

Stadnik's height keeps him confined to this tiny village 130 miles west of the capital, Kiev.

"Taking a public bus for me is the same as getting into a car's trunk for a normal person," he said.

Stadnik's unusual growth began after a brain operation at age 14, which is believed to have stimulated his pituitary gland. Since then, life just keeps getter harder.

Although he once was able to work as a veterinarian at a cattle farm, he had to quit three years ago after his feet were frostbitten because he wasn't able to afford proper shoes for his 17-inch feet.

This month, he finally got a good pair, paid for by some local businessmen. Their 0 cost was the equivalent of about seven months' worth of the tiny pension that Stadnik receives in the economically struggling country.

Stadnik sleeps on two beds joined lengthwise and moves in a crouch through the small one-story house that he shares with his mother Halyna.

His weight of about 440 pounds aggravates a recently broken leg, and he suffers from constant knee pain.

Despite his aches, he tries to keep himself busy with the usual routine of country life. He works in the garden, tends the family's cows and pigs, and helps neighbors with their animals.

To relax, he cultivates exotic plants and pampers his tiny, blue and yellow pet parakeet with his huge hands.

Bronyslav, a neighbor who refused to give his last name, described Stadnik as the "most unselfish, diligent man of a pure soul."

His friends, in turn, treat him with the same sort of soft good humor. They're trying to organize a trip for him to the Carpathian Mountains to show him that "there's something in the world taller than you," Bronyslav said.
 
Perhaps he needs to stop eating his greens and start smoking:smokin:
 
This bloke could earn a mint if he moved to America. Pro-wrestler, basketball - the world's his oyster.
 
Unfortunately disorders like this are very unpleasant. Gangrene, heart failure, hip and spinal failure :(
 
Yes, most very tall people aren't that athletic because it takes all their energy just to pump blood around their body. Makes you understand why fairy tale type giants can't exist - they would die of heart failure and their legs would break under their own weight.
 
What a sad story. :( Apart from all the physical probs there are the emotional ones of always having ppl staring at him and the practical probs of clothes, beds, doorways etc. Poor man. :(
 
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Austen said:
Yes, most very tall people aren't that athletic because it takes all their energy just to pump blood around their body. Makes you understand why fairy tale type giants can't exist - they would die of heart failure and their legs would break under their own weight.

Don't talk daft, tall people's hearts/lungs limbs etc are in proportion to their size/weight ... (they better fecking be, or I'm really going to panic about them palpitations ... )

Poor diet (ie not eating enough) would be partially to blame for injuries like broken bones... I need 3,200+ cals a day at my current height/weight, he'd probably need more than 5,000 ... which is like two whole cows and a bag of chips ...

EDIT:
According to THIS he needs 6,600 cals per day ... :eek!!!!:
 
He doesn't look 8ft+ to me, but maybe it's just the photos aren't too good. Certainly doesn't look anything like the size of Wadlow , who was only 7 inches taller.
 
For the so -called "pituitary giants". While there are other complications, the high mortality of this condition is usually due to cardiovascular problems. Most tissues of the body increase in size and this includes the heart which is not a good thing.

Most people who have Acromegaly aren't abnormally tall, but if you get it before your twenties and your bones are still growing anyway quite fast, then you get the exaggerated growth which results in Gigantism.
 
LobeliaOverhill said:
Don't talk daft, tall people's hearts/lungs limbs etc are in proportion to their size/weight ... (they better fecking be, or I'm really going to panic about them palpitations ... )

If you double your height, your skin area is squared and your volume (and weight) cubed. Your limbs need to be get stronger, rather than just remain in proportion. Tall people need fat legs and strong hearts.
If you compare an ant with an elephant you will see what I mean about limb proportions!I think the limit in size for land animals comes at the point when their legs get so fat they can't fit under their body.
 
so what you're saying is ...

This 8'7" man has the heart and legs equivalent of a 5'6" person?

I. don't. think. so.

If you are of "normal" height and you gain a lot of weight you put a huge strain on your heart/legs because you have now an unnatural size for your heart/legs. If you grow very tall your heart/legs grow too and are able to sustain you because nature meant you to be tall, do you see what I'm getting at? I realise I am vague and incomprehensible at the best of times ...

or put it another way a 5'6" person's heart would say the size of an apple, a 6'6" persons would be the size of say a grapefruit. More'nlikely my 8'7" 's heart is the size of a rugby ball ...
 
LobeliaOverhill said:
so what you're saying is ...

This 8'7" man has the heart and legs equivalent of a 5'6" person?

I. don't. think. so.

If you are of "normal" height and you gain a lot of weight you put a huge strain on your heart/legs because you have now an unnatural size for your heart/legs. If you grow very tall your heart/legs grow too and are able to sustain you because nature meant you to be tall, do you see what I'm getting at? I realise I am vague and incomprehensible at the best of times ...

or put it another way a 5'6" person's heart would say the size of an apple, a 6'6" persons would be the size of say a grapefruit. More'nlikely my 8'7" 's heart is the size of a rugby ball ...

I'm saying that to be a healthy giant you need to have a bigger heart in relation to your body than a smaller person.
 
Austen said:
I'm saying that to be a healthy giant you need to have a bigger heart in relation to your body than a smaller person.

Ah, I see that now ... very sorry for mis-reading your earlier post

Yes, most very tall people aren't that athletic because it takes all their energy just to pump blood around their body. Makes you understand why fairy tale type giants can't exist - they would die of heart failure and their legs would break under their own weight.

:confused:
 
LobeliaOverhill said:

I was suggesting that the fairy tale giants who are twenty foot or more tall just couldn't physically exist.
 
Scientists discover height gene

Scientists have discovered the first gene that influences a person's height.
People who carry two copies of the "tall" version of the HMGA2 gene are up to 1cm taller than those who carry two copies of the "short" version.

The international team of researchers say the discovery could aid a greater understanding of the link between height and disease.

They predict in the journal Nature Genetics many other genes will now be uncovered that control height.

Although it has long been clear that genetics plays a key role in determining a person's height, the genes involved have remained a mystery.

The latest study is a collaboration between Harvard University, the Children's Hospital Boston, Oxford University and the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter.

They analysed the genomes of 5,000 white European patients, who gave DNA samples and details of their height and weight for medical studies into diabetes and heart disease.

They found just one tiny change in the HMGA2 gene had an impact on a person's height.

The finding was confirmed by searching for the same two key versions of the gene in a further 30,000 patients.

Cancer link

Around 25% of white Europeans carry two copies of the "tall" version of the gene, while a similar proportion have two copies of the "short" version.

Carrying one copy of the "tall" version of the gene adds around 0.5cm to a person's height, while two copies adds nearly a full centimetre.

Previous research has suggested that HMGA2 plays an important role in human growth.

Rare, severe mutations in the gene cause dramatic alterations of body size in mice and humans.

Researcher Dr Tim Frayling, of the Peninsula Medical School, said: "Height is a typical 'polygenic' trait, in other words many genes contribute towards making us taller or shorter.

"Clearly, our results do not explain why one person will be 6ft 5in (192 cms) and another only 4ft 10in (145cms).

"This is just the first of many that will be found, possibly as many as several hundred."

A greater understanding of the genes behind height could also provide clues about risk of disease.

Taller people are statistically more likely to be at risk from prostate, bladder and lung cancer.

This suggests that the genes that regulate cell growth and division may also play a role in the uncontrolled cell proliferation characteristic of cancer.

Conversely, shorter people are known to have a higher risk of heart disease.

Professor Joel Hirschhorn, an expert in genetics at Harvard, said "This is the first convincing result that explains how DNA can affect normal variation in human height.

"Because height is a complex trait, involving a variety of genetic and non-genetic factors, it can teach us valuable lessons about the genetic framework of other complex traits, such as diabetes, cancer and other common human diseases."

He added: "By defining the genes that normally affect stature, we might someday be able to better reassure parents that their child's height is within the range predicted by their genes, rather than a consequence of disease."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6975865.stm
 
Doctors halt growth of seven-foot boy Brenden Adams
Doctors have successfully intervened to stop a 12-year-old boy who is already 7ft 3ins tall from growing any more.
By Jacqui Goddard in Miami
Last Updated: 5:36PM BST 30 Aug 2008

Because of a unique genetic anomaly, Brenden Adams is so lofty that he has to stoop to get through doorways, barely fits in his mother's car and dangles uncomfortably over normal sized beds.

Doctors who spent years puzzling over the cause of his runaway growth have now succeeded in slowing its pace, declaring Brenden the only known case of his kind in the world.

"We were concerned that he would continue growing and there'd just be no stopping it," said Dr Melissa Parisi, a geneticist at Seattle Children's Hospital, who has been seeing Brenden since he was four years old.

"He really is a remarkable young boy. He's unique."

Brenden's condition caused by a flaw in his DNA: part of his 12th chromosome inexplicably broke away during embryonic development, flipped itself and then reattached upside down, disrupting a gene that helps to control growth and causing his bones to elongate to extreme proportions.

Dr Gad Kletter, an endocrinologist at Seattle's Swedish Hospital, treated him with high doses of testosterone to prompt the early onset of puberty, accelerating the process by which the growth plates that sit at each end of human bones naturally close themselves off. Brenden has not grown any more for six months.

"Before treatment, he was on a trajectory that was still taking him up and up, rather than reaching a plateau. Plotting his growth curve, we think he would have been over eight feet now," said Dr Parisi.

At birth, there seemed nothing out of the ordinary about Brenden, who weighed in at 7lb 3oz and measured a regular 19.5 inches.

"But at his two month check-up," said his mother, Debbie Ezell, 40, "the doctor kept re-measuring and said 'Something's just not right, he's way too big for his age, too long.' At four months, he got all his teeth at once and they were like, 'OK, something's going on here.'"

By the age of eight, his height was that of an average 15-year-old and his head circumference the equivalent of a grown man's. "Sometimes he would grow several inches a month," his mother recalls.

She is thankful that they live in a small town - Ellensburg, in Washington state - whose community has rallied around and where Brenden has built up a circle of supportive friends and teachers who barely bat an eyelid at his towering height.

His condition brings with it other more troubling medical issues; fatty tumours, including one on his brain, painfully enlarged joints, bleeding problems and a heart condition. These mean his long-term outlook is uncertain.

"He was happy as a baby and he's happy now," said Mrs Ezell. "You can see pain on his face when he's struggling, but he doesn't want anybody to know, he just deals with it."

When a charity offered to grant him a wish, he asked for a bicycle big enough for him to ride without his knees cramping in pain. Doors and ceilings have been built higher at his home, friends and neighbours raised funds to help pay for a custom-made bed, and his mother has spent hours trawling the internet for affordable, over-sized school clothes.

"The hardest part is just not knowing what the life expectancy is," said Mrs Ezell. "But it's truly Brenden that keeps everyone on the positive side. If he's not here in a couple of years, we'll look back and think 'Yes, but when he was here, wasn't it good?'"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... Adams.html
 
Sad story:

The woman who keeps growing
Standing at 6ft 6ins and weighing 34 stone, Tanya Angus has been dubbed a modern day giant - and she is still growing.
Published: 9:54AM BST 23 Jul 2009

She has gained ten inches in just 12 years as a result of a rare growth condition, and is already one of the tallest and heaviest women on the planet.

Now doctors say Miss Angus, 30, from Nevada, is the only woman in the world whose growth cannot be halted by medication.

Suffering from a rare disease known as Acromeglia, a condition often referred to as "gigantism" where the body produces too much growth hormone, Miss Angus grew from a slender 5ft 8ins at the age of 18 to 6ft 6ins and 34 stone.

"I'm staying hopeful," she said.

"Without hope you don't have anything. I hope they can stop me growing one day so I can try to live as normally as possible."

Miss Angus's troubles began in her late teens when she noticed that her feet, face and figure were continuing to grow at an alarming rate.

"I started to feel unhappy with my appearance. I started spending a fortune on make-up, trying to make myself look better. I couldn't understand why my face didn't look as attractive any more," she said.

She also began suffering severe migraines and felt run down and depressed, as if she was suffering from constant flu.

But though she kept going to see her GP, he believed the 20-year-old was just an attention-seeker hoping to be given anti-depressant drugs, and refused to help. :evil:

Even more shockingly Miss Angus's figure started to alter, and the once womanly body, became larger overall, and straight up and down like a man's body.

"Someone at work actually asked me if I used to be a man," she said.

"My voice had also changed and become deeper. I was devastated and started to feel very shy and insecure." Things finally came to a head when her own boyfriend also asked her about her new shape, and got his mum to ask her whether she'd had a sex change. "I was heartbroken and I decided I didn't want any more to do with him," she said. "I phoned my mum and said I wanted to come back to Nevada.

"As soon as my sister saw me at the airport, she knew I'd changed, and she called my mum and told her we needed to see a doctor."

The family GP immediately recognised the signs of gigantism and referred Miss Angus to a specialist. At that stage she was 6ft 1ins tall, and a size 14 to 16, with a size 10 feet.

An MRI scan eventually showed a tumour the size of a grapefruit in her brain which had wrapped itself around her inner carotid artery, causing an overproduction of growth hormone. It was so big, doctors at first said there was nothing to be done. But Miss Angus's mother, Karen, searched the Internet and medical publications until she finally found a doctor who said he could operate.

In 2003, she Tanya finally underwent surgery to remove most of the tumour, although small parts of it were too difficult to separate from her brain. She was then given a cocktail of drugs to try to control the huge amounts of growth hormones still in her body.

Tanya had a count of 3,000 of the hormones, compared to an average person's of just 250.

Doctors were anxious to bring the level down to less than 1,000, but they were barely able to do that. Her height had crept up to 6ft 3ins, and she was now a size 20.

Unable to walk properly, and had to live with her mum and stepdad. She barely went out and was subjected to stares and make rude comments in the street.

"It was horrible," she said. "My whole life had to change, and I couldn't do anything for myself any more. The hardest thing is that people kept thinking I was man, and calling me sir, which really annoys me. I try to dress in feminine clothes and wear make-up to look nice, but it's really hard when you're my size." Two years later in 2005, the hormone levels again began to soar, and Tanya's mum sought out a second specialist who discovered the tumour had grown again and was now the size of an orange.

She underwent further surgery, and fat from her stomach had to be used to pad out areas of brain tissue from where the tumour had been removed.

Tanya was put on another set of medication to reduce the growth hormone, but her levels have never sunk to below 900 and are now weigh [sic!] over 1,000. She is now one of the world's tallest women, and also one of the heaviest.

Then two years ago, Miss Angus also suffered a stroke, caused by the pressure her massive body was putting on her heart.

She had to learn how to walk and talk again, and now suffers hearing difficulties. She recovered and went to live with her sister, but still struggles to get around, and now uses a wheelchair.

"Doctors just say there is nothing we can do for her," said Karen.

"You don't know how many doctors we have called to try and help us. We've spent all our savings, over $200,000 trying to help her.

"One doctor even told me that my daughter had only two months to live. "That was eight months ago, but I refused to believe it. I won't stop until we can find something to halt the growth." Now Tanya has a new doctor, who she's been seeing for three months, and he is hopeful of finally finding a drug combination to slow down her growth.

"I'm doing this story because I want people to understand why I'm this way," she says.

"It's not my fault I ended up like this.

"People even in my home town are still so hurtful, and I'd like people to be educated so they can treat me as a real person at last."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... owing.html
 
New world's tallest man revealed

The world's tallest man - who also has the largest hands and feet - has been revealed by Guinness World Records for the first time.

At 8ft 1in (2.47m), Sultan Kosen, from Turkey, is about 4in (10cm) taller than previous title-holder Bao Xishun.

The 27-year-old's hands measure 10.8in (27.5cm) and his feet 14.3in (36.5cm).

At the launch in London of the 2010 edition of the book, Mr Kosen said he was hoping his new-found fame would bring him love for the first time.

"The first thing I want to do is have a car that I can fit in, but more than that I want to get married," he said.

"Up until now it's been really difficult to find a girlfriend. I've never had one, they were usually scared of me. I'm hoping now I will find one."

He went on: "Hopefully now that I'm famous I'll be able to meet lots of girls. I'd like to get married."

One of the difficulties of being so tall is getting clothes which fit and Mr Kosen wore a specially-made suit to meet journalists, which was one of the first outfits he has owned that is the right size.

He also had to have a three-metre-long bed made.

Mr Kosen said: "The most difficult things are, for example, that I can't fit into a normal car. When I get into a car, it's a really tight fit.

"I can't go shopping like normal people, I have to have things made specially and sometimes they aren't always as fashionable.

"The other thing is that ceilings are low and I have to bend down through doorways."

But his height does have its upsides.

He said: "The good thing about being so tall is that I can see people from a long distance. The other thing is at home they use my height to change the light bulbs and hang the curtains, things like that."

Mr Kosen is the first person in more than a decade to be more than 8ft in height, a spokesman for Guinness World Records said.

He grew normally until he was 10, but then a tumour caused him to develop a medical condition called pituitary gigantism.

The tumour was removed last year and his growth stopped.

His visit to the UK is the first time he has travelled outside Turkey, and he will go on to visit the US and Germany.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8259728.stm
 
Meet Britain's tallest schoolgirl
Emma Cahill is Britain's tallest school, measuring 6ft 5ins and she is still growing.
Published: 6:30AM GMT 05 Nov 2009

The 16-year-old has just started sixth form at St Mary's Convent School in Worcester. She is the star player on the netball team but needs shoes specially designed to fit her size 14 feet, while she also had to have her new uniform tailored to fit her 36in legs. But she says she wants to get even taller despite being bullied over her size.

Her father Andrew, 45, is 6ft 6ins while her mother Jane is 5ft 11in.

"I am really proud to be the tallest schoolgirl in Britain. I like being a bit different but I reckon I'm still growing," she said.

''I'd like to grow an extra inch to catch up with my dad.

''I have been bullied but I try not to think about it. People call me names, laugh at me. Sometimes people do things they wouldn't do to a short person but I just laugh it off.''

Mr Cahill, who runs a software company in Droitwich Spa, Worcs., said: ''Emma was always a big child but in the last few years she's shot up.

''We keep joking we'll have to buy a bigger house so we can all fit in it.

''She was born a normal size but genetics must have kicked in. My parents and my wife's parents were tall so she must have got her height from there.''

Despite wanting to get taller, she does admit that being tall has disadvantages. She has to get her clothes made in Germany and America, while she added that it was affecting her love life.

"I haven't got a boyfriend at the moment. I think I scare them off with my height.

''I'll probably always be bigger than anyone I go out with but I'll still wear heels - I'm proud to be tall.''

Despite her mother suggesting she become a catwalk model, Emma says she wants to study to become an occupational therapist.

Louise Ross, from the Tall Persons Club, said: ''Emma should enjoy being the tallest teenage girl in the country. Women like her are the future and she should be proud and never stoop.

''Around 98 per cent of tall people are bullied but the trick is to literally rise above it.''

The world's tallest teenager is 17-year-old American Brandon Adams who stands at 7ft four-and-a-half inches.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... lgirl.html
 
California couple become world's tallest man and wife
A California couple have become the world's tallest man and wife after a ceremony in Hollywood this week.
7:00AM GMT 19 Nov 2010

Guinness World Records bestowed the towering distinction on Wayne and Laurie Hallquist under the marquee at its Hollywood museum.

The Hallquists, who live in Stockton, California, measure a combined 13 feet, 4 inches, or 407.4 centimeters, to be exact. He stands 6 feet 10.4 inches, she 6 feet 5.95 inches, the Guinness organisation said.

"It's a whole different perspective up here, and we can find each other quite easily in a crowd," the bride said. :)

"We can see several people going bald that might not know it at the moment," her husband joked. :D

The Hallquists said that when they met at a church singles club in 2003, they could tell that others around them were sizing up a possible love affair because of their height.

"She walked in, everyone looked at her, then they looked at me," he said.

They have been married for seven years, but it took the Hallquists until this year to contact Guinness World Records.

The couple said they were discouraged at first from making a play for world's tallest couple, because they read online that a man and a woman each standing over 7 feet (213 centimeters) had married in the 19th century.

Only this year did they realise they could compete in another category: world's tallest living married couple.

"There may be people who are taller than the Hallquists, but unless we go out and can measure them, the Hallquists have the record all to themselves," said Guinness World Records adjudicator Stuart Claxton.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -wife.html
 
Land of the giants discovered after mutant gene investigation
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Thursday, 6 January 2011

He stood nearly 8ft tall, earned his living from street shows and died at 22. Now researchers have found that Charles Byrne, the most famous giant in medical history, sprang from a mutant gene that first appeared 1,500 years ago and is still causing excessive growth in families in the same area of Northern Ireland where he was born.

The current "race of giants" is concentrated in a small area, but researchers requested its location not be disclosed to protect residents from curious onlookers. Following the discovery, doctors screened four families from the area found to carry the same genetic mutation and identified three patients in the early stages of excessive growth who had not realised they were affected. The four families had given rise to half-a-dozen giants as well as others affected by growth abnormalities in recent generations.

Gigantism is caused by a benign tumour of the pituitary gland which produces excessive growth hormone. If it occurs early in life it can cause a child to grow very tall, but in adulthood it causes abnormal growth of the face, hands, feet and other parts of the body in the condition known as acromegaly.

Charles Byrne, born in 1761, grew rapidly in his teens and travelled to London at the age of 19 to seek his fortune. An etching from the period shows him with two men nearly as tall, who came from a village eight miles from his. After a successful if brief career displaying his physique he seems to have drunk himself into an early grave. His skeleton is on display in the museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

Marta Korbonits, professor of endocrinology at Barts and the London School of Medicine, who led the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, said the idea for the investigation came to her after two cousins from Northern Ireland attended her clinic in London, where she cares for 150 families affected by growth disorders.

She said: "It was really a long shot. I didn't know much about Northern Ireland geography but after the first family came to me I thought of the Irish giant and initiated the studies. Then the other families fell into my lap.

"By the time I got to the fourth I was able to tell the patient his family originated from Northern Ireland and even which village they came from. He practically fell off his chair. 8)

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 77176.html
 
Study suggests tall tales of Irish giants had a grain of truth
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 64433.html
RONAN McGREEVY

Fri, Jan 07, 2011

THE PREVALENCE of giants in Irish mythology may have a genetic basis which exists to this day, researchers claim.

DNA extracted from the bones of Charles Byrne, who billed himself as the world’s tallest man in the 18th century, shows a common ancestry with five Northern Irish families who have a similar genetic condition.

The condition could be traced back to a common ancestor who lived about 1,500 years ago, but lead researcher Dr Marta Korbonits said the genetic window could be anything between 400 and 3,700 years ago. She said she was struck by the prevalence of giants in Irish mythology which features the likes of Fionn Mac Cumhail, mythical creator of the Giants Causeway.

“It was folklore up to now, but we have identified the gene that has caused the gigantism that has been going around Ireland for at least 1,500 years. There might be a grain of truth in the folklore,” she said.

One of those who shared the genetic mutation with Byrne is Tyrone man Brendan Holland who is 6ft 9ins tall and visited what may be his ancestor’s skeletal remains in the Hunterian Museum in London yesterday. Byrne was 7ft 7ins tall when he died aged 22 in 1783.

Museum director Dr Sam Alberti said: “This work vividly demonstrates the rich potential of historical human remains to advance our understanding of rare conditions and to benefit contemporary communities.”

Researchers have isolated a common gene mutation which causes a pituitary adenoma, a condition which can lead to gigantism.

The results have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr Korbonits, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism at Barts Hospital in London and an expert in gigantism, said she operated on a hunch when a Northern Ireland family which had the gene mutation came to her in 2008.

She said the research had potential benefits for those at risk of the condition which caused Byrne to grow so tall.

The life of Byrne will be the subject of an Irish language documentary from BBC Northern Ireland which will be broadcast on Sunday week on BBC2 at 7pm.
 
The life of Byrne will be the subject of an Irish language documentary from BBC Northern Ireland
Ah, the Life of Brian - great fillum! :D
 
My Big Tall Greek Giant

By Mary Karmelek | Mar 29, 2011 11:20 AM | 0

The Scientific American supplement from December 4th, 1886 featured a drawn reproduction of a photograph taken of Amanab, the “Greek Giant.” Amanab was born in 1868 near Kerassond in Trebizonde—a successor state of the Byzantine Empire located on the Southern shore of the Black Sea. At the time of the article, he was 18 years old and measured 7 feet 9 inches in height, had a head circumference of 26 ? inches, and a chest measurement of 4 feet 4 inches. The article notes that Amanab was currently unemployed, but intended “to visit the principal cities of Europe and exhibit himself to the public.”

The article also mentions other “giants” who were contemporaries of Amanab. For example, “A very remarkable Chinese giant named Chang was exhibited at Paris a few years ago. He was larger than the Greek under consideration, his height being 8 feet; and, unlike his similars, he was intelligent and educated and spoke several languages.”

While he may not have been as educated as Chang, Amanab can claim literary fame as the model for the Greek giant “Auvassab” mentioned in a discussion on giants in Jules Verne’s The Will of the Eccentric.

SOURCE: scientificamerican.com/blog/ ... 2011-03-29
Link is dead. No archived version found.


(The cited drawing from the photo is provided on the webpage)
 
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The "eccentric" actor Klaus Kinski described befriending a giantess in his autobiography, I think she was Asian, though annoyingly he doesn't give many more details other than the fact that he, er, well you can guess what he did with her.
 
Meet Malee, the world's tallest teen... and even at 6ft 10in she could still be growing
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:34 PM on 12th April 2011

Towering head and shoulders above her parents, this giant teenager is the tallest in the world at a whopping 6ft 10 in and she could still be growing.
Weighing in at 20.5 stone, Malee Duangdee from eastern Thailand knew she was different from a young age, growing much faster than her school friends.

At the age of nine, her mother, Ji, 40, took her to see a doctor because she noticed a difference between her daughter and her friends and she wanted to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong with her.
Medics found a brain tumour that was pressing on a nerve. This caused a hormone imbalance which meant she never stopped growing - and now she has to have an injection that costs £2,000 every three months to control her growth.

Her height brought the 19-year-old problems while she was at school and she suffered from bullies and has memories of a lifetime of loneliness.
She said: 'I used to feel like a freak, schoolchildren used to bully me and call me names. But since leaving school I've tried to feel more comfortable with who I am. I've got used to life on my own, but it's hard.'

As a result of her tumour, Malee has lost her sight. 'I've been tall for as long as I can remember and taking medication is part of my daily life.
'But as I've got older my eyesight has got worse and it's really difficult for me to get around.'

Her mother said that they try to do their best by their daughter, but they struggle financially: 'The injections have really helped to control her growth but they are expensive.
'She is supposed to have an injection every three to six months, but we can't always afford them so we are not sure if she's still growing.'

Malee's condition appears to be under control for the moment and since leaving school her life has turned round.
'All the kids used to call me names, the one I could never understand was "Dirty Malee". They were always so nasty.
'It would make me so sad. I was desperate to have some friends to play with but they all ignored me.
'Thankfully I had a good teacher who tried to help me and now I have nothing to do with them.'

Most of her time is now spent with her family, particularly her three-year-old sister, Daoruang.
'I help my mother around the house and cook meals. I don't do much.
'I've never had a boyfriend. I don't think marriage is possible for someone like me, I'm just too different.
'My father gets very worried about me, he doesn't let me go anywhere alone because sometimes I need help getting up, I'm pretty heavy.
'But I'd love to be like any other 19-year-old and live alone, build a life for myself and have fun but who knows what will happen.'

Malee was officially recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest girl in January 2009 knocking Brazilian Elisany Silva off the top spot. She was just 6ft 9in tall.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1JOSbvp5P
 
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