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World’s Tallest Men

March 18, 2012 by · Comments Off on World’s Tallest Men 

World's Tallest MenWorld’s Tallest Men, Turkey’s Sultan Kosen, at eight feet three inches (2.51 meters), the world’s tallest living man, says it’s “a blessing” he is no longer growing thanks to radiosurgery in the United States. “I am honored and grateful for this life-saving surgery,” said Kosen, 29, via an email to AFP on Thursday from Guinness World Records in London, whose offices he visited the day before.

“Without my record-breaking status, I would never have had the opportunity to tell people about my condition,” he added. “It is a blessing.”

Nearly two years after gamma ray radiosurgery in the eastern state of Virgina, doctors confirmed this week that Kosen has overcome acromegaly, a rare hormonal disorder that caused him to keep growing well into adulthood.

“He’s stopped growing, which is good,” neurosurgeon Jason Sheehan, who performed the non-invasive procedure that zapped the troublesome pituitary tumor within Kosen’s brain with extreme precision, told AFP.

“He will still have some medical therapy to deal with the excessive height he has achieved,” added Sheehan by telephone from the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville.

“However, it is hopeful that he will not have any additional challenges because of continued growth.”

World’s Tallest Man

March 14, 2012 by · Comments Off on World’s Tallest Man 

World’s Tallest Man, Kosen first entered the record books at 8 feet 1 inch. His next measurement found him gaining by an inch at 8 feet 2 inches. Settling at 8 feet 3 inches, Kosen made the record books for having the largest hands at 11.22 inches and largest feet at 14.4 inches.

The result of gigantism, Kosen developed a pituitary tumor as a child, which caused his pituitary gland to produce an excessive amount of growth hormone.

“That tumor is not cancerous and it is not a brain tumor,” Dr. Mary Lee Vance, an endocrinologist at the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, Virginia says. “A spontaneous mutation causes the tumor, and it’s not hereditary,” she explains. Kosen’s family is all average height.

Vance first saw Kosen as a patient in the spring of 2010. The Discovery Channel was doing a show on Kosen as the “World’s Tallest Man,” and Vance, as an expert in pituitary tumors, was asked to appear.

Vance put Kosen on a new medication to try to bring down his growth hormone levels to a normal range. Medication alone would not be enough, so Vance consulted with a neurosurgeon to explore other options.

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