|
|
|
By Ian Sample, The Guardian, London, UK, Thursday, May 06, 2004
LONDON - History provides a few pointers. According to the Bible, the
tallest man was Goliath at "six cubits and a span", which, depending on
whose conversion you believe, puts him somewhere between nine and a half and
11ft tall. Sadly though, the Bible was not peer-reviewed, so Goliath must be
disqualified
|
%20tallest%20man%20in%20the%20world.jpg) |
- The tallest man on record is Robert Wadlow, an Illinois man who died at
2.71m (8ft 11in) in 1940 at the age of 22. The record may not stand for much
longer, however. This week, Leonid Stadnyk, a 33-year-old living in a remote
village in Ukraine, hit the news as the world's tallest living man. At 2.54m
(8ft 4in), he is just 17cm short of Wadlow's record. In the past two years,
he has grown 30cm.
Like Wadlow, Stadnyk owes his extraordinary height to a tumour on his
pituitary gland. The tumour churns out growth hormone but it's a secondary
effect that leads to the runaway growth that doctors call acromegalic
gigantism.
Normally, the growth of our bones is limited by our sex hormones. A good
burst of sex hormones at the right time tells the ends of our bones to stop
growing. In acromegalic gigantism, as the tumour grows, it destroys cells in
the pituitary gland that stimulate the release of sex hormones. The bones,
therefore, never get the signal to stop growing.
But surely there must be a limit to a person's height? John Wass, a
specialist in acromegalic gigantism at the University of Oxford, reckons it
would be impressive to survive for long if you grew taller than 9ft.
First, high blood pressure in the legs, caused by the sheer volume of blood
in the arteries, can burst blood vessels and cause varicose ulcers. An
infection of just such an ulcer eventually killed Wadlow.
With modern antibiotics, ulcers are less of an issue now, and most people
with acromegalic gigantism eventually die because of complications from
heart problems. "Keeping the blood going round such an enormous circulation
becomes a huge strain for the heart," says Wass.
- NOTE: To see six photographs of Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk click on
the following link: http://www.artukraine.com/huminterest/stadnik.htm
- FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
|
|
table of contents 
